By Kerry Reid
Copyright chicagoreader
Seeing James Sherman’s new play about the 1950s Hollywood blacklist at Northlight last Thursday was a chilling experience. It was impossible not to think about the purges being demanded by the fascist GOP regime (and their quiescent quislings in legacy media) of anyone who dares besmirch the legacy of Charlie Kirk by, uh, quoting him directly and accurately reporting on the views he proudly espoused in life. The First Lady of Television, directed in its world premiere by B.J. Jones, takes place on the set of The Goldbergs, the long-running Jewish urban family sitcom created by Gertrude Berg that started out on radio in 1929 and moved to television in 1949 (thus predating I Love Lucy, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, and several other goyish entries in the genre). I knew little about Berg until reading Emily Nussbaum’s New Yorker profile in June, and much of what Nussbaum covered is present in Sherman’s story, which unfolds in real time at a rehearsal for The Goldbergs.
The First Lady of TelevisionThrough 10/12: Wed 1 and 7:30 PM, Thu–Fri 7:30 PM, Sat 2:30 and 7:30 PM, Sun 2:30 PM; relaxed/sensory-friendly performance Sat 9/20 2:30 PM, audio description/touch tour Sat 9/27 2:30 PM, open captions Fri 9/26 7:30 PM and Sat 9/27 2:30 PM; Northlight Theatre, North Shore Center for the Performing Arts, 9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie, 847-673-6300, northlight.org, $46-$98 ($15 students, subject to availability)
Gertrude (Cindy Gold), who plays the matriarch Molly Goldberg, runs the set with firmness and compassion, with a keen eye for every detail. But this rehearsal in summer 1950 (the show-within-the-show actually involves the Goldbergs celebrating the Fourth of July) is different than all the others. Gertrude is under pressure from CBS and her sponsor, General Foods (via Sanka, whose logo dominates Jeffrey D. Kmiec’s note-perfect period set, and whose commercial, delivered by Gertrude’s Molly, opens the play) to fire Philip Loeb (William Dick). Loeb plays Molly’s husband, Jake, and has just been named as a communist through the notorious Red Channels report on “infiltrators” in radio and television.
The entwining of anti-Semitism with anti-communism in the Hollywood blacklist is obvious here, and commented on by both Loeb and Eli Mintz (Mark David Kaplan), who plays the comic-relief character of Uncle David in the sitcom. Arlene McQuade, who plays daughter Rosalie on the series, wants her own series and would be happy to see Loeb go if it means she avoids guilt by association. (She also tries to rewrite an essay on George Washington that her character delivers to reflect sympathy for what the McCarthyites are doing.) Sweet and mildly talented Larry Robinson (Ty Fanning), who plays the Goldbergs’ son, Sammy, isn’t sure what to believe. And beleaguered director Walter Hart (Joe Dempsey) just tries to play by the rules, even as everything is hanging by a thread.
The idea that “CBS will not tell Gertrude Berg what to do” is a comforting fiction that evaporates over the course of the show’s 75 minutes. Sherman has crafted a solid meat-and-potatoes play about a sadly evergreen moral dilemma, and Jones’s cast delivers with a range of off-camera emotions that serve as counterpoint to the cheery assimilationist patriotism of the episode they’re rehearsing. Kaplan’s Eli is a classic kibitzer, and Dick’s Philip is angry, anguished, and exhausted.But it’s Gold, appropriately, who carries the story of Gertrude Berg and shows us the costs of being the one who has to balance doing what is right for one person with the economic needs of many. (As Stephen Colbert reminded us on the Emmys broadcast, his show being canceled by CBS won’t just put him, a wealthy man, out of work. It is also costing hundreds of other people their livelihoods.) A scene where Gertrude has to perform as Molly on the phone for Cardinal Francis Spellman (she’s hoping his intercessions might win a reprieve for Loeb) is infuriating, and also a reminder of how little power even famous stars have when it comes to fighting those determined to win and destroy by any means necessary.
