Allan Appel Photo
Fledgling director Smith and his stage manager, Megan Chenot
Earlier this year, as Donald Trump’s steamroller victories in the primaries were gathering an unstoppable head of steam, New Haven Theater Company actor J. Kevin Smith happened to catch a televised version of one of the canon’s most famous plays about the paralyzing fear and inaction that can result from a perceived all-encompassing political powerlessness.
That play was Incident at Vichy, Arthur Miller’s profoundly disturbing meditation on a group of men caught up in a terrifying round-up of Jews — or is it only people who are circumcised? — in Nazi-occupied France during World War II.
This weekend Smith is directing the play in an enhanced staged reading as the season opener for the New Haven Theater Company in three performances at the group’s headquarters, the English Building Market at 839 Chapel St. The play will be performed on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
Miller’s 1964 play, controversially seen as an examination of how victims’ mindsets contributed to making the Holocaust possible, is both wordy and taut, stuck in its time, yet also universal, and it spoke to Smith in a way he could not resist.
“Things [in the play] were so current and the language … it was the first time I’ve ever said, ‘I’ve got to direct,’” he said.
Miller’s play is an almost clinical examination of the psychological responses of a group of men — a frail aristocrat, a psychiatrist, a laborer, a bearded old Jewish man, a union organizer, an anarchist-intellectual, a waiter, a young boy, among others — after they have been picked up by French Vichy forces for interrogation in what appears to be a kind of racial round-up.
The characters ultimately don’t know if their fate will be determined by their identification papers, the condition of the tips of their penises, or by their fearless or fearful bearing as they are, one by one, called into the office of a French captain, overseen by a German major, who himself hates what he is doing, but resists it only by getting drunk.
One by one, the characters enter the interrogation office, sounds are heard, muffled, and few of those who enter leave.
Smith was cautious to say that “our politics is way too eager to jump to Hitler analogies … Bush was Hitler, Hillary, Obama.”
NHTC Photo
George Kulp and Erich Greene, in rehearsal
“I don’t equate Hitler with Trump,” Smith said. But his interest in directing the play stems from profound concern for the huge upsurge in nationalism both here and around the world.
“I think this play addresses what we can do as individuals to stand up to forces of fear,” Smith said as we sat in front of the high brick wall at the back of the English Building Market, where the play will be performed.
Smith is going to be using that brick wall to effect; he said the wall will have the power of a character. His directing vision also includes what he hopes will be a powerful use of individualized lighting.
He’s going to be giving each actor, when his character’s turn to examine his own fears and motivations arises, a personal lamp to light up his face and his script.
When that lamp goes on Smith wants the audience to listen closely, to be illuminated, to try to understand what that character is willing or unwilling to do “to stand up to oppression.”
An actor and a teacher of actors, Smith is also using the occasion to dip his toe into directing, which he has not done since helming a student production of a William Butler Yeats one-act in college, he said.
The staged reading will also be the first time that all the male members of the New Haven Theater Company — all the roles are male — will be on the stage together for the first time.
“There’s a reason why we chose to do this during the election season. I’d like the play to speak for itself. I hope people will come out of it hopeful, but realistic. It’s important to note that people can take action,” he said.
One of those actions just might be to register to vote if a theatergoer has not. To help that action along, Smith said that representatives from the League of Women Voters will be attending all three performances. That’s also a first for the company.
The New Haven Theater Company’s staged reading of Incident at Vichy runs Sept. 29 and 30 and Oct. 1 at the English Building Market, 839 Chapel St. Tickets are $15. Visit the company’s website for more information.