'Trumbo' a performance and play to be treasured

by CLARK GROOME

What a joy it is to listen to elegant writing, especially in letters written with a style that has become all but extinct in our modern, e-mail brisk society.

Such writing is on glorious display in the Philadelphia Theatre Company's production of Christopher Trumbo's epistolary play Trumbo. The play chronicles life and legacy of Dalton Trumbo, the author's father.

A well-known war correspondent and screenwriter, D.T., as he signed his letters, was the victim of the 1947 scourge by the House Un-American Activities Committee. He spent time in jail for contempt of Congress and later was blacklisted with many others by the powers that ran Hollywood in the 1950s.

It was a fascinating and frightening time, one which is well documented in the biographical information imparted by Christopher Trumbo (William Zielinski) and in the letters read by D.T. himself (Bill Irwin), all of it set against the periodic film clips or photos from the HUAC hearings themselves, a background that gives the live action an eerie realism.

Trumbo was a major Hollywood figure, one who was not a Communist but one who valued those freedoms guaranteed by that occasionally out-of-favor Bill of Rights. After he was blacklisted, he continued to write, enlisting a friend to submit his scripts and, later, writing under the pseudonym Robert Rich. Rich won an Oscar for his screenplay for the 1957 film The Brave One, a statuette he never received. Later, after almost 13 years on the blacklist, he got his own name on two major movies: Spartacus and Exodus.

Trumbo's life was filled with words, with family and with determination. In Bill Irwin's fine performance at PTC, Trumbo becomes a wonderful companion.

Irwin is perhaps America's greatest comic actor. As it turns out, he's equally good in a role that is filled with humor and with the anger and frustration Trumbo felt at his mistreatment by an out-of-control government. His readings are full of wit and power and, above all, intelligence and eloquence. It is a performance to be treasured.

Bill Zielinski's Christopher is also quite good. That said, the PTC production that Peter Askin has directed is somewhat flawed. In order to establish Trumbo as a literary piece, Askin has both Irwin and Zielinski reading from scripts.

It's an understandable device for Irwin who is reading from D.T.'s letters and needs to get them word- perfect. It's also a device that been used well in other fine letter-based theatrical events, most notably A. R. Gurney's delightful Love Letters.

Zielinski, on the other hand, is basically acting as a narrator, filling in his own reactions to his childhood, his father's predicament and some biographical information that moves the piece along. To have him reading all this distances him from the audience, diminishing his performance, which was otherwise quite strong.

The Philadelphia Theatre Company's physical production of the 90-minute one-act was designed by Loy Arcenas (set), Janus Stafanowicz (costumes), Jeff Crotter (lighting), John Gromada (original music and sound) and Dennis Diamond (the useful and informative video projections).

For tickets to Trumbo, playing through November 7 at the Philadelphia Theatre Company at the Plays and Players Theatre, 1714 Delancey St., call 215-569-9700 or visit www.phillytheatreco,com.