Lawmakers See Red in ‘Are You’

The Soviet Union is just a memory; likewise Richard Nixon and most of the other Cold Warriors. Recently released documents have even zapped the mystique of the Rosenberg espionage case.

Given the times, Eric Bentley’s “Are You Now or Have You Ever Been . . . ,” the 1975 retelling of the House anti-Communist hearings that led to Hollywood blacklisting, may not seem quite as harrowing as it once did. Yet the well-appointed 20th anniversary revival of Allan Miller’s staging, now at the Odyssey Theatre, still succeeds in turning history into gripping drama.

Working more as editor than as playwright, Bentley cut and pasted actual transcripts from 1947-56 congressional hearings (a technique the Odyssey later adopted in “The Chicago Conspiracy Trial”) into a surprisingly seamless chronicle of government-sanctioned hysteria and manipulation. A trio of alternately smug and impatient committeemen (Michael Cavanaugh, Basil Hoffman and the excellent Martin E. Brooks) hector a parade of industry witnesses, with the first-act centerpiece--the tragic disintegration of actor Larry Parks (Raphael Sbarge)--nicely counterbalanced by the stirring heroism of singer and activist Paul Robeson (John Cothran Jr).

Miller (who has an amusing turn as writer Abe Burrows) directs with a sharp eye for the absurdities and unhappy accidents of history in the making. The faux marble and Greek columns of Bill Eigenbrodt’s set, meanwhile, connote a suitably timeless environment for this fabled chapter of history.