Theatre in Review: Compulsion (The Public Theatre)

	Mandy Patinkin and Hannah Cabell. Photo: Joan Marcus

In Compulsion, Rinne Groff takes one of the juiciest cultural imbroglios of the 20th century -- namely the controversy surrounding the US publication, and stage adaptation, of The Diary of Anne Frank. It's a gripping tale of intrigue and infighting, featuring an all-star cast from Broadway, Hollywood, and the publishing industry. It's not just a literary hair-pulling match, either; it has serious repercussions, which reveal volumes about the state of anti-Semitism in the US in the 1950s, even among so-called liberals. And its reverberations can be felt across the decades, in the publication of several books and, most notoriously, in Cynthia Ozick's 1997 New Yorker essay, in which she wrote that, considering the vilely sentimental uses to which Frank's diary had been put, it would have been better if it had been lost in the ashes of the war.

Clearly, this is irresistible dramatic material, which is why it's so sad to say that, in Compulsion, Groff doesn't do it justice.

Compulsion rightly centers on Meyer Levin, the American Jewish writer who championed the publication of the diary in the US. Rather dubiously, he then got the assignment of covering it for the New York Times Book Review; his front-page rave was a major factor in putting the book on the map. All of this was apparently with the implicit agreement that he would be given the dramatic rights to the book. But, before he could find a producer, a cadre of kibitzers -- led by that arch trouble-maker Lillian Hellman -- worried Levin's script to death, insisting that it was "too Jewish." In a sly bit of jujitsu, the rights to the play flipped from Levin to Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, WASP screenwriters whose resume included Father of the Bride, In the Good Old Summertime, and It's a Wonderful Life. In their hands Anne Frank was transmuted from Jewish heroine into an all-purpose symbol of human suffering, branded nby some as "a Jewish Corliss Archer," after a popular movie teen played by Shirley Temple.

The Goodrich-Hackett script was a smash, winning both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize. If that wasn't galling enough for Levin, Anne was played by Susan Strasberg, daughter of Lee, a founder of the Group Theatre -- whose members Levin branded as Communist dupes and self-hating Jews -- and Anne's mother was played by Gusti Huber, a German film star of the Nazi era. The entire affair ended in a tangle of suits and countersuits, with Levin eventually signing away all rights to his play. Even so, his obsession with it ate away at him until his death.

You'll get some of this in Compulsion, but not nearly enough -- largely, I think, because of Groff's minimalist approach, which focuses relentlessly on Levin and his obsession. Aside from Mandy Patinkin, who plays Levin -- here known as Sid Silver -- there's a supporting cast of two; it's not enough to convey this story in all its rancor and complexity. This is especially true in the first act, which covers the basic facts of the case. In scene after scene, Sid shows up at one office after another, where he is patronized and/or betrayed by a small army of gentile publishers, publicists, and legal advisers. Some of these indignities are small -- "Don't worry about the director being Jewish; they all are," he is breezily assured -- and others are more traumatic, as when his introduction to the diary's US edition is dropped in favor of one by Eleanor Roosevelt. Some of the incidents are truly mind-numbing; when he objects to having the play handed over to a pair of writers whose knowledge of the Holocaust is confined entirely to the MGM, lot, a publishing executive huffily says, "That kind of discrimination is not something Doubleday wants to be part of."

Unhappily, there's not much drama in the first act, because all of Sid's real antagonists are left offstage. Particularly missed is Otto Frank, who befriended the writer, then left him out to dry. (A little Lillian Hellman would have spiced things up no end.) Instead, Sid just keeps getting bad news from a barrage of minor characters. Things improve a bit in the second act, which is set in Israel a decade later. Having had a blockbuster of his own with Compulsion, about Leopold and Loeb, he appears to be happy and settled with his family in Tel Aviv. In reality, he's still thirsting for revenge, and he cooks up a plot to get his play staged, an act that has devastating consequences for his marriage.

Groff clearly feels that the drama in this story consists in watching Sid eaten up by his fury, which is fueled by a mix of genuine outrage and insane, Iago-like jealousy. And, of course, Patinkin is the man for the job, creating a character in whom rage burns, steadily and unbanked, just beneath the surface at all times. He always goes too far, and he always fascinates, particularly in the climactic scenes, when he emits sounds of despair that are unlike anything you've heard before. But the sources of Sid's discontent are really explored, and, as the play wears on, he becomes less a tragic figure and more a cranky pain in the ass.

Under Oskar Eustis' uneven direction, Patinkin thoroughly dominate; his co-stars are forced to make do. Outfitted with a rather shifty-looking wig for one role and an ooh-la-la accent for the other, Hannah Cabell struggles to convince as both an earnest young assistant editor who ages into a grand old broad of publishing and as Sid's young French wife, who isn't above the odd suicide attempt. As a series of publishing and legal apparatchiks, Matte Osian is so indistinguishable that the script makes of a joke of it: Every time Sid is introduced to one of these characters, he wonders if he they haven't met before. Osian does better in the second act, as an Israeli director who gets conned into staging Levin's Anne Frank script, unaware of the legal implications.

Groff's best invention is the addition of marionettes to the action. Levin was a skilled puppet-maker as a youth, and the appearance of a tiny Anne Frank connected to a set of strings is a powerful reminder of how a brilliant young woman became a kind of posthumous toy for various ideological points of view. In the play's best, and eeriest, scene, Anne descends from the flies into the Silvers' bed, where she tries to ingratiate herself with Sid's wife.

The production benefits from an effective design. Eugene Lee's set splits open at key moments of stress, and also serves a screen for Jeff Sugg's scrolling images of Anne, her diary, that New York Times review, Broadway marquees, and Tel Aviv beaches. Michael Chybowski's lighting creates a number of distinct and compelling atmospheres. Darron L. West's sound design is typically accomplished. This is the rare case where Susan Hilferty's costumes trend toward the cartoonish, but Matt Acheson's puppets are beautifully done.

Never boring, frequently frustrating, Compulsion is that toughest of nuts, a play in which the idea is better than the execution. As anyone who saw The Ruby Sunrise knows, Groff doesn't lack for ambition -- but this is a story that needs a broader canvas.--David Barbour