The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
What a shock to find oneself sitting in a theater, intellectually engaged in a new play. If Amy Herzogs After the Revolution, currently enjoying a first-class production at Playwrights Horizons, is more interested in your head than your heart, well, blame it on the hard-nosed Lefties with which she has populated her historical-familial drama.
Emma Joseph (Katharine Powell) has recently graduated from law school, having already made a name for herself as a feisty liberal, not above invoking the memory of her Communist grandfather, a man who was blacklisted during the Joseph McCarthy hearings. Except, as it turns out, her grandfather was actually a spy for Stalin during World War II. This comes as news only to her; her sanctimonious father Ben (Peter Friedman)the kind of liberal who speaks in Spanish to men named Miguel and describes one of his students as wearing jeans sagging below the assnever told her the truth, allowing her to open a foundation in her grandfathers name dedicated to helping anyone being unfairly persecuted.
For two hours, Herzog and director Carolyn Cantor both revel in a refreshing refusal to grant the audience easy answers. Was Emmas grandfather doing the best he could under difficult circumstances? Was his perjury during his hearing excusable given that Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were scheduled to be executed as Soviet spies in three weeks? And is Emmas pet project, fighting side-by-side with her boyfriend Miguel (Elliot Villar) what she sees as the mishandled trial for murder of Black Panther Mumia Abu Jamal, any less honorable if he is, in fact, guilty?
Herzog has wisely set her play in 1999; Ben draws laughs from the audience during a toast to Emma when he says that, with Bill Clinton favoring Big Business as president, things cant get much worse. Pre-9/11 is the only time period when a penetrating debate about the ethics of those involved in the House Un-American Activities Committee is still viable; questions now regarding the morality of people naming the names of members of the Communist party seems slightly quaint. But theres nothing quaint about the after-shocks of Emmas discovery, which tears her away from her close-knit family and forces her to re-examine what shes planning for her life.
The cast is top-notch, with Mare Winningham turning in a particularly subtle, moving performance as Emmas sympathetic stepmother. But Meredith Holzman, David Margulies and Mark Blum also have moments of startling clarity, as various relatives and family friends commenting on and questioning Emmas motives and beliefs. As Ben, Friedman doesnt avoid the painful and aggravating complexities of a man who believes fervently in radicalism while insisting that his daughters toe the line he arbitrarily sets. Lois Smith appears infrequently as Emmas grandmother, the sole member of the family who refuses to acknowledge any possible wrongdoing on the part of her husband.
If Powell can seem too brittle as Emma at first, her off-putting performance eventually reveals itself to be in tune with the character. Emma must be a forceful woman in order for the play to work, someone so convinced that shes on the side of right that any cracks that begin to appear in her beliefs become cataclysmic. As she rails against the lie shes been fed her entire life, Emma can be startlingly brusque; she seems intent on turning her back on her entire family. But in a lovely, oblique coda with Smith, who gently rebuffs Emma for criticizing her grandfather while calling it progress, Powell reveals every ounce of the inner conflict that has been raging below the surface all along. She doesnt want to desecrate the memory of the man who set her on her path, but she also cant bring herself to rationalize away his spying as necessary. In her wide, unblinking gaze, theres real terror that the revolution her father preached might actually find her on the wrong side.
After the Revolution
Through Dec. 12, Playwrights Horizons, 416 W. 42nd St. (betw. 9th & 10th Aves.), 22-279-4200; $55.