TRUMBO

It was with great anticipation that I was taken to the production of TRUMBO, staged by the Huntington at the beautifull Calderwood Pavillion at the Boston Center for the Arts. Not only is the subject about Hollywood, but it is also about the "Blacklist," during the time of McCarthyism. That my own family was affected by McCarthyism and that some harbinger of that period seems to be einating from Washington now only whetted my appetite for the production. And it stars one of my favotrites, Brian Dennehy, whom I had just admired in ASSAULT ON PRECINCT l3, as Dalton Trumbo.

Unfortunately, seeing the Pavillion almost matched seeing the production. While the subject matter remained fascinating, the choice of having the text almost exclusively from Trumbo's letters seemed limiting. He was an extraordinarily good screenwriter. I liked SPARTACUS, KITTY FOYLE and ROMAN HOLIDAY, but I was less fond of EXODUS , PAPILLON, and the film for which he got as Oscar under an assumed name, THE BRAVE ONE. He was also a good letter writer (although the funny letter to his son in college about the joys of masturbation went on way too long), but the limiting dramatic context for the writing of the letters lessened their potential impact. There was no real dialogue - hence, little dramatic conflict. And Dennehy seemed constrained by having to sit behind a desk, reading his letters like an old professor reading from yellowed notes. No standing, little gesticulating.