The Trial of the Catonsville Nine
As flames leaped up from smoldering pieces of paper in a trash bin, nine Catholic activists, among them two priests, stood in solidarity, watching the fire and waiting for police to arrest them. Their destruction of 378 draft files outside the Selective Service office in Catonsville, Maryland on May 17, 1968 would become a nationally renowned act of civil disobedience against the Vietnam War. The two priests who led the demonstration –- brothers Daniel and Philip Berrigan -- would solidify their reputation as leaders of the peace movement.
Forty years after the Catonsville Nine took symbolic action to protest the war, The Actors' Gang is staging a play based on the courtroom trial stemming from the incident. The provocative issues raised so incisively by the piece are fully in tune with the group’s passionate commitment to politically charged work.
Written by Daniel Berrigan, "The Trial of the Catonsville Nine" premiered at the Mark Taper Form in 1971 under the direction of Gordon Davidson. The courtroom drama focuses on the seven men and two women who dared to put their lives and liberty on the line to resist a war they deemed illegal and immoral. To protest the bombing of Vietnamese civilians with napalm, the activists made a homemade version of the substance and poured it on the draft files. A defendant in the case, David Darst, explains, "Our point is that we were destroying property at the draft board which is desecrating the most sacred property -- life."
Staged on a triangular set that minimally suggests a courtroom, back dropped by an immense American flag, The Actors’ Gang production, directed by Jon Kellam, presents the work in a stylized fashion that relies heavily on carefully choreographed movements. While this approach brings a spare elegance to the proceedings, it often creates an emotional distance between the audience and the actors delivering the eloquent lines. Yet the passionate convictions of the defendants still manage to emerge in moments of poignancy and power, especially in the performances of Andrew E. Wheeler as Daniel Berrigan, Scott Harris as Philip Berrigan, Chris Schultz as Thomas Lewis, and Paige Lindsey White as Mary Moylan.
“To pour napalm on pieces of paper is certainly preferable to using it on human beings," asserts Moylan, a nurse who worked as a midwife in Africa. In a subdued yet resonant moment, John Hogan (Ethan Kogan), defends his participation in the protest by saying, “I just want to let people live. That is all."
Rounding out the Catonsville Nine are Corey G. Lovett as George Mische, Patti Tippo as Marjorie Melville, George Ketsios as Thomas Melville, and Cameron Dye as Darst. (Played in recorded form before the show begins, “Part of This,” a folk song written and performed by Dye, beautifully captures the Catonsville spirit of protest.) Some of the cast members also double as prosecutor and defense attorney. Ketsios is particularly effective as the prosecutor, who concedes that the antiwar attitudes of the Nine are “reasonable” but urges the jury to convict them for breaking the law because they destroyed government records.
Behind a podium at the apex of the triangular set, Adele Robbins, as the judge, gradually reveals the emotional sympathy she feels for the defendants after becoming exasperated with their seemingly irrelevant testimony about their humanitarian work overseas in the years prior to the 1968 protest for which they were on trial. “You must come closer to Catonsville!” she continually admonishes them. Yet the activists argue that their involvement with the poor and marginalized communities in such countries as Guatemala, Uganda, and the Dominican Republic awakened them to questionable US foreign policies, serving as a prelude to their opposition to the Vietnam War.
As a historical recreation and a morality play of sorts, "The Trial of the Catonsville Nine" explores social injustice on a broader scale, juxtaposing the corporate profits to be gained from weapons of war with the lack of economic support to alleviate poverty in both the United States and abroad. At its core, however, the play focuses on the role of dissent and the religious convictions often linked with this tradition. The Catonsville Nine continually invoke Christian beliefs as the underlying motivation for their actions and their opposition to laws they believe violate higher moral principles.
"The time is past when good men can remain silent, when obedience can segregate men from public risk, when the poor can die without defense," proclaims Daniel Berrigan in one of the play’s most powerful monologues. "How many indeed must die before our voices are heard? How many must be tortured, dislocated, starved, maddened?"
These questions, which pertained with such relevance to the Vietnam War, are still being asked years later as the United States remains entangled in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Before the opening night performance Saturday, Feb. 14, Ron Kovic, a peace activist and a veteran of the Vietnam War who remains paralyzed from injuries he sustained in combat, urged members of the audience to speak out in dissent when necessary: "A time comes when silence is betrayal. Even with this magnificent new president, we've got to be vigilant; we've got to be wary."
Kovic, whose autobiography inspired Oliver Stone’s 1989 film “Born on the Fourth of July,” said of the 1968 Catonsville protest: "What a courageous act. If all of us could have the courage to step over that line -- creatively and nonviolently …"
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Theater: The Actors' Gang, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City.
Web Site: http://www.theactorsgang.com/
Tickets: 310-838-4264
Dates: Through March 21, 2009