Peter O’Connor, Kirk Fogg and Hope Brown (Photo by Maria Proios)
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Crimson Square Theatre Company at the Beverly Hills Playhouse
Extended through November 23
In Outrage a well-respected acting teacher named Ethan loses his theater, his friends and his students’ esteem after they learn that he voted for Donald Trump. Writer-director Allen Barton’s play targets self-righteous political correctness on the left, and its knee-jerk demand, in some circles, for ideological conformity. The play’s message is summed up in an Erich Fromm quote that serves as its preface: “There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as ‘moral indignation,’ which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.”
The chain of events that leads to Ethan’s (Peter O’Connor) ostracism and the upending of his life commences with a contentious script-doctoring session (Ethan also coaches people on their writing) with a student, Elaine (Terri Parks). In her script, Elaine had demonized one of her characters because he’d voted for DJT; her hyperbolic, near hysterical reaction when she realizes that Ethan actually is a Trumper is the first in a number of scenes in which Left-leaning people display intolerance for opposing views. There follows a series of incidents in which one or another of Ethan’s acquaintances reacts negatively to his political choices — not only at his vote in the 2016 election but also at his refusal to express outrage after an LAPD officer is exonerated for shooting a Black teen. There are also confrontations with former longtime friends who, in Ethan’s view, said or did nothing as he plummeted in status from beloved teacher to despised pariah.
One person who seems to understand Ethan’s viewpoint is Phillip (Hope Brown), a Black handyman whom Ethan had called in to fix a malfunctioning smoke alarm that, in frustration, he’d yanked from the wall. Though Phillip himself has been stopped by police, a gun thrust in his face, he’s of the opinion that one needs to obey police commands — otherwise, defiance makes one fair game for aggression on their part. In one scene he calls out an angry white woman (understudy Nicole Varona) who rages on social media after the LAPD officer’s “not guilty” verdict comes in — his point being that only he, Phillip, not she, has the legitimate right to protest.
Another person with whom Ethan reaches some understanding is hard-nosed small business owner, Murray (Peter Zizzo, in the evening’s scene-stealing performance) who despises Covid masks and the powers-that-be who mandate them. The rude, crude, blue-collar Murray offers Ethan more empathy than anyone in his former circle of lefty artistic friends.
Any savvy student of history can testify that the play is making a sometimes valid point: One has only to think of the bloodthirsty Jacobins of 18th century France or the myopic Communist Party members worldwide who demanded adherence to dogma from fellow travelers in the face of gory Stalinist excess. Our own political dialogue is rife with individuals who brook no departure from a stern, at times unreasonable (to my mind), menu of politically correctness — a dogma, for example, that has brought down scrappy fighter for social justice, Al Franken, or which labels
any critique of a woman or a Jew or a person of color as misogynist or anti-Semitic or racist, regardless of the specific circumstances.
So, what’s the problem? Well, Ethan tells us that he disdains liberal bleeding hearts (whom he perceives as self-serving hypocrites) — but otherwise he never articulates – and the play never explores — exactly why he and his wife (Cameron Meyer) have thrown their support to Donald Trump. (My personal experience is that this usually involves extensive embitterment or disappointment in that person’s life.) Nor is it clear why the playwright has opted to have his central character support the morally and ethically damaged Trump (a man who gleefully mocks a disabled journalist, to offer one teensy little example), rather than a politician like Romney whose ideology may be anathema to Progressives but who can arguably be respected as a person of some honor. If you’re going to build a case for intolerance from the Left, would it not have been better to make the case around a politician like that?
As Ethan, the watchable O’Connor projects an interesting persona, angst ridden and cryptically off-kilter (beginning at the top with his fulminating about the smoke alarm), but again, why? There’s nothing in the script to help us understand what’s motivated him.
In addition to Zizzo’s entertaining performance, there are other effective ones, including Varana as the impassioned woman who erupts with an intense profanity-laden diatribe after a homicidal cop goes free, and Sara Ball as a formerly worshipful student of Ethan’s who insists he take a stand — and turns on him when he categorically refuses. The most satisfying interchange takes place between Ethan and his decades-old friend Tom (Kirk Fogg), who makes unassailably clear why he walked away when Ethan’s secret came to light.
Crimson Square Theatre Company, Beverly Hills Playhouse, 254 S. Robertson Blvd., Beverly Hills. Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sun., 7 pm; thru Nov. 23. www.crimsonsquare.org Running time: approximately two hours and 30 minutes with an intermission.
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