What with all the televised trials Americans have watched in the last 20 years, not much is new for modern audiences to see in this Ayn Rand courtroom drama, first produced in the 1930s. But the conceit here—that members of the audience become the jury and vote on the verdict—keeps at least those audience members alert and trying to absorb every word of testimony and every bit of body language.
Two competent performances also help keep our interest. Nancy Young creates the beautiful defendant with a fair degree of skill, used to good effect in her Act 2 reveal. Vern Urich keeps command of the courtroom as defense counsel. The most realistic portrayal, however, is by Dianna Leanne Wilson, who adopts the listening-with-unfocused-eyes technique of court reporters the nation over.
But, as the widow, Ann Henson can't escape the horrible blond wig, stranding her as a comedic character with no funny lines. Others are not even that successful, badly creating caricatures of witnesses or seemingly forgetting lines. But at the matinee reviewed, the number of cast members exceeded the number of audience members, and yet the actors gave their all to the production, earning high marks for their valiance.
Charles Picerni's direction offers a respectable amount of period correctness, a decent amount of tautness, and apt casting. The gangster (Yancey Dunham) can pass for a gangster, the prosecutor (Don Moss) looks like a prosecutor, and the judge (Michael Bruce at the performance reviewed) looks commanding. Evan Bartoletti's set involves the drab-cocoa paneling of local courtrooms but also seems to fold the audience in its embrace.
In essence, Rand asks the audience, "Are you with us or agin' us?" Would you vote to hang a woman because she served as a married man's mistress for years? Or because she is an atheist? The script might play differently in Peoria. Let's hope, in modern-day Hollywood, our ideas of justice have developed beyond that.
Presented by Charles Picerni at the Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., L.A. Oct. 15-Nov. 14. Thu.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 2 p.m. (310) 477-2055.