Date: Fri 22-Dec-1995

Publication: Bee

Author: SHANNO

Illustration: C

Location: A-16

Quick Words:

Denial-theatre-review-Shubert

Full Text:

(rev of Sagal's "Denial," Long Wharf, 12/22/95)

Theatre Review-

Sagal's Drama Denies More Questions Than It Answers

(with photo)

By Julie Stern

NEW HAVEN - Quick: Why is it California has the greatest number of lawyers per

capita in the US, while New Jersey has the greatest number of toxic waste

dumps?

Answer: Because New Jersey had first choice!

I love a good lawyer joke, and a number of them are told in Peter Sagal's

disturbing drama, Denial , as part of the bantering friendship between

Stephanie (Starla Benford), the legal secretary, and attorney Abigail Gersten

(Bonnie Franklin), her employer-mentor. The jokes are also a form of gallows

humor, a response to the mounting tension in the office when Abby becomes

increasingly embroiled in a most unpopular lawsuit.

As a pro bono assignment for the ACLU, Gersten has agreed to defend a nutcase:

Professor (of mechanical engineering) Bernard Cooper is a right-wing fanatic

whose apparent mission in life is to spread his "discovery" that the Holocaust

was a hoax, perpetrated by liars who simply wanted a chance to disappear by

assuming new identities. Six million Jews were not killed, he insists, they

merely emigrated to New York, where nobody would notice them among so many

others.

Because a secret informant has told the government there is a direct

connection between Cooper's writings and a series of hate crimes, the justice

department raids Cooper's house and seizes his membership lists and files.

Cooper wants Gersten to defend his claim that this is a clear violation of his

Constitutional right to free speech.

Adam Ryberg, a young federal prosecutor, reproaches Abby for agreeing to take

the case. He and she are both Jewish themselves, and it amounts to a sin

against the victims for her to participate in this attempt to deny history.

Furthermore, by defending Cooper she incurs responsibility for future hate

crimes carried out by his followers.

Abby stands firm. However repulsive her client is, to her this is a matter of

principle: Justice can only be based on the impartial rule of law, and the law

is clear. In defending the neo-Nazi, she will be serving a higher ideal. Free

speech only has meaning when it is free for all, including those with

outrageous opinions, and as a lawyer it is her place to protect it against

encroachment.

The real issue here is the very institution of law in a society that is less

than civil. The premise of free speech is that people engage in rational

discourse as part of a genuine commitment to sort out the truth. Put to the

test of logic, Cooper's harebrained theories would be recognized as nonsense.

However, Cooper is not a rational thinker, and however pedantic and steeped in

alleged references his pronouncements seem to be, his supposed interest in

uncovering the historical truth about the Holocaust is merely a pretext for

triggering aggressive fury in his target audience - young, poorly educated and

economically marginal white males with stormtrooper power fantasies.

The implication the Holocaust was a hoax becomes an invitation to indulge in

demonstrations of hatred, and Cooper's desire to orchestrate such frenzies is

part of his own paranoid delusions of grandeur.

In a remarkable performance by Max Wright, Cooper is clever about masking his

ultimate intentions and cloaking his doomsday visions in the persona of the

mild-mannered eccentric, but he allows flashes of the truth to appear. And in

the flood of tabloid and talk show publicity that surrounds any controversial

trial in this country, he is gaining just the national audience he has always

craved.

Attorney Gersten is still committed to her case position, but as the media

event snowballs, and she grows increasingly beleagued, she is forced to

question the relevance of civil liberties law and the inherent value of her

own principles.

The manipulation of mob anger for the aggrandizement of a leader is a

recognized political technique that was made famous by the Nazis but which has

been used by many other aspiring psychopaths. Mindless rage is a visceral

reaction that can be stirred by a shrewd and vitriolic orator. Once such

emotion is inflamed it is easy to turn it into an instrumental force.

From Oklahoma City to Jerusalem, 125th Street in New York to Fort Bragg, North

Carolina, the link between hate speech and violent crime has been made

abundantly clear in the news headlines this year alone.

With our airwaves polluted by hate radio and the Internet opening new

possibilities for the dissemination of malevolence, Sagal's play raises more

questions than it answers about the Constitutional rights so sacred to our

national identity, and the crisis of a legal system that has become the butt

of so many jokes and the object of disillusion and cynicism.