Play about Nazi occupation examines guilt, responsibility

During its 69 seasons, Gallery Players has been staging dramas by Arthur Miller.

For its 14th Miller production, to open Saturday at the Jewish Community Center, the troupe will revive “Incident at Vichy,” a 1964 Broadway play and one of Miller’s lesser-known works.

“It’s about guilt and responsibility,” director Laurie Alexander said.

So are the best-known plays of Miller (1915-2005) — most notably “Death of a Salesman” and plays previously staged multiple times by Gallery Players: “The Crucible,” “All My Sons,” “The Price” and “A View From the Bridge.” Gallery Players produced “Incident at Vichy” in 1967.

“Miller was very concerned with morality and people taking responsibility,” Alexander said.

The play is set in 1942 in Vichy, the seat of the government of unoccupied France whose leaders were suspected of collaborating with the Nazis.

“I’m a Holocaust educator, but this play was a revelation to me,” Alexander said. “Miller What: Who: Where: Contact: Showtimes: Tickets: $20, or $18 for senior citizens, $15 for members, $13 for senior members, $10 for students and children

shows us a glimpse of what was going on in France in the early years of the Nazi occupation.”

The 90-minute one-act revolves around 10 unrelated men brought in for questioning by French police and German military officers at a Vichy police station. Most are Jewish and have fled to Vichy from German-occupied northern France, but many don’t understand at first why they have been detained.

“Ostensibly, the men are taken just to check their papers, but the police measure their noses and (make them) drop their pants to check their circumcision,” Alexander said. “The men were afraid to do anything, so they just sat there.”

Todd Covert plays one of the arrested men: Leduc, a psychoanalyst in his late 40s and a veteran of fighting against Germans during the fall of France in 1940.

“He has a fighting mind,” Covert said. “The doctor has a profound sense of what’s happening and tries to warn everyone.”

Leduc, who has heard rumors about Jews being rounded up, tries to rally the prisoners to escape.

“The play is about passivity versus engagement,” Covert said. “Miller’s central lesson is how the Nazis were able to get away with the Holocaust. … Will you stand still and be passive about injustice? Or will you stand up to do something about it?”

Jaimie Schwartz plays Von Berg, an Austrian prince among those arrested. Troubled by the Nazis, Von Berg left Austria because of the 1938 German invasion.

“A wealthy member of the aristocracy, Von Berg is privileged and sheltered but intelligent,” Schwartz said. “Initially, his attitude is confusion, but he evolves rapidly … and he’s finally able to give voice to his secret fears.”

At first, Von Berg remains silent while listening to the other men speculate about their situation.

“They hear whispers of the concentration camps,” Schwartz said. “They hear about the trains with locks on the outside, then the next rumor that they will be shipped to labor camps where nobody comes back.”

Finally, Von Berg asks the men if they might have been arrested as Jews.

“They won’t answer, and he’s apologetic about it, but as a non-Jew, he thinks that’s why they’re there,” Schwartz said. “Miller brings together into one room all of those threads of all of his plays about guilt, redemption, fear and false accusations.”

Schwartz, 55, appreciates the play even more because of his Jewish father, who escaped from Czechoslovakia in 1942, three years after its occupation by the Germans.

“I love the play, and not just for its humanity. … It’s relatively accurate about what people knew in Europe,” he said. “Miller’s writing is beautiful to read and speak, but his story is almost too awful to comprehend.”

“Incident at Vichy” Gallery Players Jewish Community Center, Roth/Resler Theatre, 1125 College Ave. 614-231-2731, www.jccgalleryplayers.org 8 p.m. Saturday and May 12; 2:30 p.m. Sunday and May 13; and 7:30 p.m. May 10