Band apart
The Just and Trumbo investigate revolt.

By Robert Avila

TERRORISM, AS a blanket term, is rarely defined though much used and abused today. There are few words that deserve more serious interrogation, however, as an open-ended war on terror promises no end to a cycle of escalating violence whose principal victims are always the innocent. Shotgun Players' production of Albert Camus's 1949 play The Just (Les justes) proves to be a still relevant and dramatically engaging examination of the subject, grounded in the mind-set and motives of a historical group of Russian socialist revolutionaries who assassinated a prominent czarist official in 1905.

Though today terrorism usually connotes the deliberate murder of civilians for political ends, as employed by the play's characters, it means the targeted assassination of political figures. Grand Duke Sergei, the revolutionaries' victim, is a representative of a brutal system of oppression and therefore considered a legitimate target. Yet, as an encounter between revolutionary Yanek (Taylor Valentine) and the duke's widow (Michele Shoshani) suggests, the taking of any life is no small matter. Moreover, the characters must face the notion of what many today call "collateral damage," after the first attempt on the duke's life fails due to the proximity of children. The embrace of murder by these idealists, whom the playwright clearly respects, is nevertheless a slippery slope. Stepan (John Nahigian) insists many more children stand to die if the duke and the system he helps perpetuate are allowed to continue another day. Camus is interested in the psychology of these idealists driven to murder and suicide for the cause of a bright future – but also in the relationship between means and ends in the legitimate revolt against tyranny. These themes are brought out with dramatic flair in Tom Hoover's lucid new translation and the bold but finely tuned performances directed by Patrick Dooley.

'Trumbo' undaunted

The year 1949 saw the publication of another once-again-timely musing on the nature of revolt, a little book by American writer Dalton Trumbo called The Time of the Toad. Subtitled A Study of Inquisition in America, this was Trumbo's take on the domestic counterpart to American imperial aggression, namely the attacks on dissent and the Bill of Rights that included the 1947 House Un-American Activities Committee hearings in Hollywood. He took his title from the cautionary adage about the frog that sits comfortably in a pot of warm water and unwittingly allows itself to be cooked as the temperature is gradually increased.

One of the most successful screenwriters of his time, Trumbo refused to cooperate with the committee, an act that landed him in jail for contempt of Congress along with fellow writers and directors collectively known as the Hollywood Ten. His son, Christopher Trumbo, fused a selection of his father's letters with some of his own childhood recollections of those difficult years in Trumbo: Red, White, and Blacklisted, now enjoying a limited run at the Post Street Theatre. Directed by Peter Askin, the play features Brian Dennehy as the acerbic and unbowed writer, with William Zielinski in the role of narrator Christopher Trumbo. Trumbo has more in common with a staged reading than with a full-blown dramatic work, but Dennehy (who never leaves the chair behind his desk) delivers a judicious selection of the writer's often brilliant letters with all the power and authority they merit, and the effect is several times mesmerizing.

'The Just' runs through April 10. Thurs.-Sun., 8 p.m., Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk. $10-$30. (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. 'Trumbo: Red, White, and Blacklisted' runs Wed/16-Sat/19, 8 p.m. (also Wed/16 and Sat/19, 2 p.m.), Post Street Theatre, 450 Post, S.F. $42.50-$62.50. (415) 771-6900, www.trumbotheplay.com.