The Trial of the Catonsville Nine
Henry David Thoreau wrote in his essay Civil Disobedience, “If…the machine of government…is of such a nature that it requires you to be an agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.”
That is exactly what Jesuit priest Daniel Berrigan, along with his brother, also a priest, and seven Catholic activists did in 1968 when they burned hundreds of draft notices with homemade napalm in protest of the Vietnam War. For their actions, of which no one was hurt and only minor property damage incurred, all nine were found guilty and sentenced to a collective 18-20 years in prison. Daniel Berrigan went into hiding, conducting interviews against the war, but was eventually discovered and served his two years in prison.
Although Daniel Berrigan may not be a household name synonymous with other famous nonviolent resistors such as Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., the Actors Gang revival gives his free-verse courtroom drama a home and an opportunity for another generation to examine its history in light of current events, anti-war sentiment, and civil liberties.
“The Trial of the Catonsville Nine” premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in 1971, and the play still proves to be relevant today. Unlike other courtroom dramas, however, such as “A Few Good Men” and “Twelve Angry Men,” the trial of nine social good-doers defending their actions fails to captivate and is ultimately stilted and tiring. As each defendant takes the stand, the accused slowly become the accusers as they recount their experiences that leads to a mind numbing repetition of American inequity, prejudice and social terrors inflicted on innocents beyond Vietnam, but in Africa and Guatemala too. It seems by the second act their defense is one bad turn deserves another, a sort of “Bonnie and Clyde act on behalf of God and man.”
The second act is more of the same until the defendants circle the judge like a pack of dogs, engaging Adele Robbins’ Judge Judy-like character to a philosophical debate. This smacks of a liberal license taken by Berrigan to get his point across, but nonetheless this scene is much more satisfying than the soapbox moralizing.
The ensemble shifts across the sharply effective triangle on the floor like a well-oiled machine. Every cast member has a moment, and uses it splendidly. Andrew E. Wheeler as apathetic turned activist priest Daniel Berrigan engages and creates an appropriate tone of outrage balanced by reason for the cast to follow. Cameron Dye as David Darst, the brains behind the homemade napalm, finds delightful nuances in his gestures and is the only actor able to produce a single laugh from the audience with a simple, “Hello.” Paige Lindsey White devastates as the prim and proper nurse, Mary Moylan, during her passionate pleas against inhumanity. While the cast worked extensively on Suzuki and movement direction from Melina Bielefelt and Jon Kellam, a diction coach should have been employed for the Midwestern accents that were altogether lacking.
There is little action except for the opening scene pantomime choreographed by Melina Bielefelt and the ceremonial folding of the American flag used as the predominant backdrop and symbolic silent witness throughout the play. There is hardly any suspense as the defendants freely admit to their acts, and there is very little interaction between the characters except for the occasional sympathetic shoulder squeeze and proud appraisals on one another’s testimony. What is left is simply a sketch study of nine otherwise outstanding citizens divided by loyalties between their faith and their country. The honorable intentions of this production deserves applause, but seeing it feels more like serving time on jury duty.