Here in America
Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond

“WHY should I see this play? And why now?” These are common questions asked by discerning audiences. 

David Edgar’s new play at the Orange Tree answers with its title, for this is a play exemplifying contemporary America.

Set in the 1950s amid the manic and self-destructive patriotism of the McCarthy era, the drama highlights the world we know today. For when, in the play, a deluded Joe McCarthy embarks on now legendary anti-communist witch-hunts, it’s like a modern-day Donald Trump, with almost the same sloganeering, calling on his followers to “make America great again.” Both confuse truth with myth, trade loyalty with wholesale betrayal, and systematically trash all nobler aspirations of the American dream. 

The play is built around two real-life protagonists: iconic theatre and film director Elia Kazan and playwright Arthur Miller — both of whom fell foul of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) as it intoned its deeply threatening question: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”

Kazan and Miller — close friends and co-creators of some of the most brilliant plays and films of the era — find themselves in deep conflict, as the former betrays all around him to save his career, while the latter, boasting integrity and artistic freedom, challenges him on the meaning of loyalty and the dichotomy between public commitment and private impulse.     

It’s good to see the small Orange Tree bravely engaging with a playwright of this calibre and with so important a theme. And much of director James Dacre’s production rises to the challenge.

The actors, too, work hard to capture the complexity and charisma of these real demigods. Michael Aloni gives us a strong and incisive Miller with a winning and quizzical air, and Shaun Evans (of TV Endeavour fame) is impeccable as Kazan. But you can’t help feeling that a personal, behind-the-scenes encounter with the real men would have been more extraordinary and that, in the end, this is more style and debate than an inhabiting of souls. 

Faye Castelow plays Kazan’s articulate wife, Day, with intelligence, while Jasmine Blackborow excels as the other woman, Miss Bauer. The names of all the characters, as listed in the programme, seem to pretend an easy familiarity (Miller is called Art and Kazan Gadg) though they never really get behind the public personae we all know. And Miss Bauer is, of course, none other than Marilyn Monroe who provided extra-marital diversion for Kazan and went on to marry Miller. From the moment Blackborow’s Monroe enters, she seems surrounded by a golden glow that shimmers from her immaculate blonde hair, almost mythical curves and translucent skin. And she is vocal with her men. 

The women here, though — for all their articulacy — are devices, while their men (white and empowered) cheat casually on their wives, savour their unquestioned dominion and generally assume ascendancy. We’ve seen this all before. 

Nevertheless, Edgar brings us a play that is erudite, multi-faceted, philosophically stimulating and crammed with style. Not new but punching high. 

Runs until October 19. Box office: (020) 8940-3633, orangetreetheatre.co.uk.