{"id":8446,"date":"2020-03-12T08:19:50","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T12:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8446"},"modified":"2020-10-13T12:54:55","modified_gmt":"2020-10-13T16:54:55","slug":"conscience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=8446","title":{"rendered":"Conscience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"George<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

On stage at George Street Playhouse<\/a>\nis the world premiere of Tony award-winning playwright Joe DiPietro<\/a>\u2019s play Conscience<\/em>\u2014a\ntimely examination of the political risks and imperative for elected leaders to\nstand up to a demagogic bully. The production, expertly directed by George\nStreet\u2019s artistic director David Saint, opened March 6 and runs through March\n29. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

DiPietro focuses his historical drama tightly on four\npeople: Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith (played by Tony-winner Harriet\nHarris) and her aide William Lewis, Jr. (Mark Junek), on one side, and Senate\nRepublican Joseph McCarthy (Lee Sellars) and his researcher\u2014and later wife\u2014Jean\nKerr (Cathryn Wake), on the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the drama begins, Smith\u2014the first woman to serve in both\nthe U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate\u2014is a political whirlwind.\nMcCarthy, elected in 1946, clearly doesn\u2019t take his Senatorial duties nearly as\nseriously as he does his flask. Their two aides effectively and efficiently\nstake out the opposing political positions. You dread the vicious confrontation\nto come, when she remarks on McCarthy\u2019s two essential qualities: \u201cthe ability\nto hate and the skill to communicate it as virtue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCarthy\u2019s virulent anti-Communism crusade begins when,\nbefore a group of Republican women in Wheeling, West Virginia, he waves a piece\nof paper that he claims contains the names of 205 Communists who work in the\nU.S. State Department. Fueled by alcohol and drunk on power, he rides high for the\nnext few years, making wild accusations about Communists in government that\nstoke public fear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 1950, the appalled Smith is the only Senator brave enough\nto take him on. She believes her colleagues will support the Declaration of\nConscience she delivers on the Senate floor. But only six senators sign on, and\nlater disavow it. The declaration makes McCarthy her implacable enemy, and\nSmith and Lewis, a homosexual, become a target of his smear tactics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The demagoguery, defamation, and mudslinging continue, until\nMcCarthy takes on the U.S. Army, a quest that ends with the famous statement:\n\u201cHave you lost all sense of decency?\u201d It\u2019s a comeuppance the audience savors\nafter so much one-sided verbal violence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the unsettling resonance with the current political\nmoment, DiPietro avoids cheap political shots, focusing instead on the intense interpersonal\ndynamics. Smith is a powerful, complex character\u2014a woman with a sense of\nhumor\u2014in DiPietro and Harris\u2019s hands, and Sellars\u2019s McCarthy slowly unravels\nbefore your eyes. Junek movingly confesses his homosexuality, and Wake adds an\neffective touch of sanctimony to Ms Kerr\/Mrs. McCarthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

George Street Playhouse has\ngreat skill in bringing such focused biographical works to life, having\npreviously excelled with DiPietro\u2019s The Second Mrs. Wilson<\/em> and Joanna\nGlass\u2019s Trying<\/em> (about aging US Attorney General Francis Biddle). Even\nthough this important play is about politics and therefore, mostly about\ntalking, David Saint\u2019s lively direction never lets its momentum slow. It is\nmesmerizing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conscience<\/em> is on view at\nGeorge Street\u2019s beautiful new home at the New Brunswick Performing Arts Center,\n9 Livingston Avenue. For tickets, call 732-246-7717 or contact the Box Office online.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On stage at George Street Playhouse is the world premiere of Tony award-winning playwright Joe DiPietro\u2019s play Conscience\u2014a timely examination of the political risks and imperative for elected leaders to stand up to a demagogic bully. The production, expertly directed … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[269,265,366,266,268,104,147],"tags":[1270,1721,1722],"class_list":["post-8446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-actor","category-biography","category-drama","category-history","category-politics","category-the-morgue","category-theater","tag-george-street-playhouse","tag-joe-dipietro","tag-joe-mccarthy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2ce","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/conscience-3-e1584014801109.jpg?fit=400%2C469&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8447,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8446\/revisions\/8447"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}