Jessica Frey, Alex Mandell, Alex J. Gould, Jessie Cannizzaro, Tom Mezger, and Justin Ahdoot in Show Trial. Photo: Morgan McDowell
Is this a “show trial” or a “trial show”?
The characters themselves can’t seem to decide in Laura Zlatov’s stinging political satire (which uses the former name) now playing at the tiny Tank theater on West 36th Street. Either way (or both), it’s hilarious and harrowing.
In the world premiere of Show Trial, this Slovak American playwright dramatizes the sham court case against Milada Horáková that took place from May 31 to June 8, 1950 in Communist Prague. It resulted in her conviction and hanging on June 27. The tapes of the trial were hidden from the public for decades because Mrs. Horáková deviated from the government “script.” So their discovery and subsequent revelation is indeed a momentous event.
A former anti-Nazi who spent years in German concentration camps, Mrs. Horáková became a member of the Czechoslovak parliament after WWII and a much-admired champion of social justice and women’s rights. However, the brutal, punitive Czech Communist regime singled her out for her activism as a warning to others ,and accused her of high treason and espionage. (It’s the very definition of the term “show trial”: a script written by the authorities for a trial that hasn’t yet taken place, to remind people what could happen to an enemy of the state.)
Zlatov has made the daring choice to satirize this brutal historical event, and the result is both chilling and wildly entertaining. An outrageous corps of prosecutors gathers in the court room for this absurd “trial of the century” to accuse the martyred Horáková (an earnest Jessica Frey) not only of high treason and espionage, but also of worse crimes including “downhill skiing naked and conjuring the ghost of Daffy Duck.” Lead prosecutor Josef Urválek (the stylish Alex J. Gould) describes her as “an agent of Western imperialism and veganism.” A commentator (Alex Mandell) accuses her of heading a “terrorist gang of mimes and saxophonists . . . in a quest for world domination. They hid spies in our nightstands.” And another prosecutor, Ludmila Brožová (the exhibitionistic Jessie Cannizzaro, who keeps reminding us of her roles in Chekhov’s plays), accuses the heroic Horáková of being a secret Nazi herself.
The climactic event of the trial—announced by Karel Trudák, the hyperactive judicial chairman (Brian Bock)—is the show-stopping arrival of Stalin himself, played by Ema Zivkovic in a sequined floor-length ballgown, topped by a giant black wig. “Touch my moustache,” Stalin encourages the persecuted Horáková . “Most people tell me I’ve got great hair, like the pits of an Ussuri Brown Bear.” Stalin’s dialogue consists mostly of his obsession with borscht and how it’s made in various restaurants. He also describes his intimidation tactics (“People are so much more agreeable when they’re dead. . . . Sometimes I hide under their desk, jump out, and yell ‘boo’!”).
Tom Costello skillfully directs the chaos produced by this wickedly playful ensemble. There are moments of utter madness, when actors enter wearing kangaroo masks (to remind us that it is a “kangaroo court,” of course). There are also absurd non sequiturs, mentioning Marlene Dietrich, Chrysler cars, Vogue magazine, etc. The production values are smart and sharp, dominated by the appropriate color of red (set by Cat Reynor, lighting by Sawyer Smith, costumes by Patricia Marjorie).
But there are words of wisdom along the way that cut through the madcap melee. “Sometimes when you’re sitting in these rooms with the men who make laws, it helps to remember that we’re smarter than them,” utters Františka, Horáková’s only supporter (also played by Zivkovic).
Most meaningful is the role of Milada Horáková, played with dignity by Jesssica Frey, an element of calm in all the chaos. She answers the absurd interrogators’ questions with courage and integrity. There are also unexpectedly touching moments, like the scene between Milada and her husband, Bohuslav (Alex Mandell), who begs her to flee from Communist Czechoslovakia, as he plans to do. Most moving of all are scenes between Milada and her seventeen-year-old daughter, Jana (Kalusha Brutlag), where Milada expresses her regret at not being a good mother and at having been absent during her five-year imprisonment by the Nazis. That serious moment is undercut yet once again by absurdity, when Jana tells her mother whom she’s going to marry (no spoiler—yours to discover—but imagine the worst).
At the end, the final verdict of high treason is pronounced, along with “smuggling strawberry milkshakes while under the influence of Frank Sinatra under all of the laws that aren’t really laws.” The sentence to death by hanging follows.
This will be the second of three plays in the current season that draw on past historical records to cry out against political tyranny. In May, Eric Bentley’s s Are You Now or Have You Ever Been at City Center featured transcripts from the brutal McCarthy hearings of the 1950s. Next month, we’ll see the stunning Here There Are Blueberries on Broadway, featuring photos of smiling Nazi officials in the concentration camps. Both are delivered in a straightforward, docudramatic style.
In the case of Show Trial, this courageous Slovak American playwright draws on the strong tradition of theatre of the absurd that helped change the history of her family’s country of origin. We are reminded of Václav Havel, the founder and first president of the democratic Czech Republic in 1989, who wrote satirical plays in the 1960s and 1970s that were his country’s defining expression of protest under Communism.
“Do you think what happened to Milada Horáková could ever happen here?” asks one character. That’s a question for us to ponder.