STAGE REVIEW : Casting Lapses Mar ‘Hollywood on Trial’

It’s possibly time for the Mark Taper Forum’s literary cabaret, Sundays at the Itchey Foot, to reexamine its format--specifically those shows that require actors to sit like members of a chamber quartet and read lines from scripts nestled on music stands.

An inherently dramatic subject, “Hollywood on Trial,” opened Sunday. Five actors lined in a row read/played the roles of countless characters involved in the moral squalor of Hollywood’s dark age: the hearings launched 40 years ago by the House Committee on Un-American Activities that sent 10 film artists to jail and triggered the industry’s infamous blacklist.

First of all, on the bright side, Taper veteran Harvey Perr’s research and writing is thorough and informative. Excerpts from the hearings and assorted published sources are structured in a kaleidoscopic manner that keeps you alert if you’re a student of the period.

It’s interesting and a bit sad, too, to hear Gary Cooper testify before the committee that “I could never take pinko mouthing very seriously because I didn’t think it was on the level.” Or to hear Bertolt Brecht deny before the hearings in September, 1947, that he was a Communist, followed by the narrative point: “He left for East Germany, never to return.” And there is a line from this literary documentary that members of the Writers Guild can relish with chill: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Writers Guild?”

One rich and imaginative touch is the performing quintet’s recital of movie dialogue from film scripts of the ‘30s and ‘40s that the HUAC considered Red-inspired because the screenwriter was an unfriendly witness (we hear scenes from John Howard Lawson’s “Sahara” and “Five Came Back,” Abraham Polonsky’s “Body and Soul,” Albert Maltz’s “This Gun for Hire,” among others).

So what’s the problem? The show, unfortunately, seems to have been cast in a rush. Only one actor, Victor Campos, is consistently on top of his material. One performer, Tina Preston, is colorless and dull. Suzanne Fletcher enjoys a few strong moments, as does Sab Shimono, particularly in a Ronald Reagan impersonation from Reagan’s days as president of the Screen Actors Guild. John Dewey-Carter muffed too many words, as did others. As a group, these readers are not very theatrical.

Co-directors Robert Egan and Perr cannot sidestep the nagging sense of an academic colloquium. The actors obviously did not have much rehearsal time. At least the chairs could be arranged more diversely. But these drawbacks earmark the challenge in reading anything to an audience. Who wants to be read to unless it’s by somebody like Richard Burton? Of course, it might help if the actors knew their roles well enough to occasionally take their eyes off the script. In any event, for those who are mesmerized by Hollywood’s nightmare years, the show encapsulates much material. Twenty years after the hearings, the late and longtime-blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo told this reporter: “If it hadn’t all happened, who knows? I might have fallen for a blonde and become a producer.” That was a clue to one writer’s survival. The majority did not endure that well.

Performances are at 801 W. Temple St ., Sunday and Nov . 22 at 1 p.m., Nov. 15 at 6 p.m. Tickets: $6; (213) 972-7372.