In New York, they got “Trumbo” read by the likes of Nathan Lane and Brian Dennehy. Very good actors, but actors nonetheless.
In Chicago, the collected words of the blacklisted screenwriter were read Monday night at the Steppenwolf Theatre by Studs Terkel, a 91-year-old iconoclast who knew Dalton Trumbo quite well and was, albeit in a smaller way, blacklisted himself.
The result wasn’t so much acting as “Trumel” or “Terkelbo,” a strange but thoroughly entrancing melding of the complementary personality of the player and the character with narrator Ross Lehman gamely along for the Terkel ride.
At times it all felt like a peculiar form of channeling–the kind that would have had Sen. Joseph McCarthy spinning in his grave.
Talk about a night with the unmistakable smack of authentic feeling. This was an ideal way for “Trumbo” to come to life.
Given the affection this city feels for the aged player, allowances were freely available in the packed house. None were necessary. Terkel remains strikingly sharp, mangling nary a line and missing so few beats or comic pauses that one began to suspect his gently dotty new personality is nothing more than a shrewd affectation to sell a few more books.
Christopher Trumbo’s 75-minute “Trumbo,” written with affection by the son to keep the father’s memory alive and venerated, is far from a great or substantial dramatic work. But Trumbo’s included writings–mainly personal letters interspersed with the odd interview or deposition–are rather better and more interesting than many would imagine, given his retreat from the public consciousness.
In his oft-rhyming letters to Christopher, Trumbo showed some of the silly and affectionate wit of A.A. Milne. In letters to colleagues–betrayers and backers both–he had a touch of Twain’s eloquence and evenhanded sarcasm. And in the loquacious letters to an errant contractor, a hostile school principal and other correspondents, he suggested that blacklisted writers in Mexico had so much time on their hands, they could put hours into challenging an excessive bill with literary flourish.
The moral of Trumbo’s letters, love and otherwise, is to suggest that the author was a stubborn, complex and capable artist with wit and affection for his country and distaste for expediency. Regardless of what one might think of his views, he was, after all, sent to jail for the expression of an opinion. Along with telling on one’s friends, that’s a no-no in the Terkel view of the world.
Terkel devoted the close of the evening to a 15-minute chat about his own blacklist experiences in Chicago and Trumbo’s legacy. He did not ramble for a moment.
Trumbo, Terkel said with eyes flashing, taught the importance of “saying no to an official whom he thought was wrong.”
Or was that Terkel, Trumbo said?
Well, no matter.
“I think it’s all rather contemporary,” said Terkel of Trumbo, playing chirpily to the delighted choir and ending with a political dig and a wicked grin.
