Execution of Justice

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SOURCE: A review of Execution of Justice, in Theatre Journal, Vol. 38, No. 4, December 1986, pp. 476-77.

[In the evaluation below of Execution of Justice, Brown notes that "the weakness of the play lies in its similarity to news and documentary technique, " but he concludes favorably: "A serious attempt is being made here to question our legal system and the ethics that underlie it."]

The sentencing of former San Francisco supervisor Dan White for the 1978 murders of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk inspired television and print commentary, a film called The Times of Harvey Milk, and a play by Emily Mann. We all remember the murders, the trial of Mr. White, and his use of the "twinkie defense." The Eureka Theatre of San Francisco saw potential in this story and commissioned Ms. Mann to dramatize it in 1982. After eighteen months of collaborative effort a work emerged that was produced in regional theatres (Arena Stage, Guthrie, Alley, among others) before opening in New York. The script was published in the November, 1985, issue of American Theatre.

Execution's plot faithfully follows events, employing as dialogue only actual statements from trial transcripts, media interviews, or interviews conducted by Ms. Mann, who terms the play "theatre of testimony." Incidents flash rapidly before the audience on a simple set while a cube suspended above the stage displays news clips, excerpts from the film already mentioned, and simultaneous video images of the on-stage action. Things get a slow start because of necessary but familiar exposition before the trial heightens interest and focuses attention on the opposing camps: the conservative "law and order" sympathizers of White versus the liberal constituency of Moscone and Milk. It is here that the play promises a great deal: dramatizing an underlying clash in social values with both sides claiming the moral high ground. In fact the most intriguing part of the story seems to be the violent aftermath of the trial and the continuing polarization of the city.

Unfortunately, however, when the play gets through the early scenes, it fails to establish a dramatic direction. The possibilities inherent in the willingness of the jury to accept the "diminished capacity" defense are not explored beyond the event itself. The emotional travails of the community, while beautifully portrayed in a candlelight march simultaneously accomplished on film and on stage, proceed no further. Perhaps sensing dramaturgic problems, Ms. Mann (who also directed) resorts to a barrage of technical effects that confuse the issue further. Ming Cho Lee's setting, uprooted from its original home at Arena Stage, loses a good deal of its effectiveness enclosed in the proscenium of the Virginia Theatre.

The playwright has chosen to eschew a point of view. While the New York Times found Miss Mann's objectivity courageous, I wonder if this is not exactly the play's problem. Miss Mann began a journey in search of truth, trusting to the facts. But in the end we get a compilation not very different from a news report, with the same dissatisfied sense of incompletion we get from the chaos of life: that there are no answers. Even artists may despair of finding answers, but the art of the drama forms a contract with the audience that promises at least a search for answers, or the derivation of an interesting dramatic form from the patterns of despair (for example, Waiting for Godot). Here there is nothing like that. In her quest for fairness Miss Mann has left us with so much balance that we are discouraged from either drawing conclusions or, worse, from finding meaning in the murders of Moscone and Milk or from the suicide of White.

Recently there has been a good deal of talk about the relationship between television news and entertainment. Robert Brustein labeled our window on the world "news theatre," while others have been so unkind as to suggest that the ability of news stories to motivate us to turn on the television may have more to do with what we see than factual importance or relevance to our lives. Execution of Justice interests particularly in this regard because of its attempt to mine the drama from facts already exploited by television and its use of the technology of television as part of its production design. The weakness of the play lies in its similarity to news and documentary technique: it fails to move beyond the appeal of the events themselves—in short, to dramatize the events.

There are excellent performances by a solid ensemble of two dozen actors doubling in twice as many roles. We receive a vivid sense of the individual events, from the opening announcement of White's crimes onward, because of the acting. Peter Friedman as the defense attorney and Gerry Bamman as the prosecutor spar and jab in the play's liveliest conflict as they elicit testimony from an intense John De Vries as White's police colleague, and a self-consciously meticulous Donal Donnelly as a coroner and psychiatrist. John Spencer is consistently earnest and confused as White and Mary McDonnell as his wife is moving when she demonstrates the personal cost of White's actions.

Having started with the play's failings, I must emphasize that there remains a good deal to praise. A serious attempt is being made here to question our legal system and the ethics that underlie it. The producers deserve credit for their courage. In the midst of all the wailing and gnashing of teeth expended on the ills of the great white way, someone actually tried to present a play on Broadway with a serious subject, a huge ensemble cast, and all the missing elements so fervently desired by commentators who decry empty theatres and empty-headed offerings. We can all hope for more efforts of this kind by theatre artists of serious purpose.

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