Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy might be set in 1942 France, but with our own would-be leaders in 2015 testing the boundaries of Godwin's Law, it's high time we were reminded of the wisdom in setting aside personal prejudices to unite with our fellow citizens—a major literary theme in the years following World War Two, before falling out of fashion in the wake of the 1960s' emphasis on ancestral ethnicity. As Martin Neimoller once famously warned, if we do not defend one another, who will defend us? Our play opens on a group of men seated in a quasi-industrial room—not a formal police station, but guarded by sentries, nevertheless. One of the occupants is a corporate businessman, another an unemployed actor, while a third is an electrician. The others represent a likewise diverse social spectrum—a waiter, an artist, an elderly rabbi, a vagabond, a teenage boy, an army psychiatrist in the previous war—even a titled Austrian aristocrat. What they share at the moment is the disconcerting experience of having been pulled in off the street by unidentified agents to await individual interrogation in the adjoining private office. The artist Lebeau suspects racial profiling, but businessman Marchand shrugs off the inconvenience as a random security check. Significantly, his are the sole identification papers to meet with the approval of their captors. So when would you begin to get nervous? When Lebeau tells of having had his nose measured? When rumors emerge of prisoners ordered to drop their trousers? When railroad mechanic Bayard reports hearing distressed human freight in the trains bound for "labor camps" in Poland? When the uniformed staff officer expresses unease at his assigned duties? As the detainees offer differing opinions on the reason for their—temporary, surely—incarceration and argue among themselves, their numbers lessen. By the time somebody suggests that they could escape by acting together, their depleted strength renders this no longer an option. Armed with the benefit of hindsight, we may view with incredulity the complacency of a civilian populace assured of their personal immunity from harm—but did I mention that playgoers in Redtwist's cloakroom-sized auditorium are also seated on bare wooden benches, alley-style, separated from the hapless victims by mere inches? Under Ian Frank's tight-as-a-fist direction, however, a superlatively selected ensemble unperturbed at being viewed within their claustrophobic confines from 180 degrees, featuring Tim Parker and Jeremy Trager as the playwright's chief spokesmen, generates palpable suspense sufficient to inspire our collective endorsement at each small heroic act of resistance.
