Margaret Chase Smith arrived in Congress in 1940, when women in Washington, D.C., were still generally expected to type the speeches rather than make them.<\/p>\n
Elected to the Senate eight years later, the Maine Republican became the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress \u2014 and, in 1950, was the only woman among 96 senators.<\/p>\n
That same year, Rep. Joseph McCarthy began transforming suspicion into political currency amid the \u201cRed Scare.\u201d On June 1, Smith answered him with her \u201cDeclaration of Conscience,\u201d condemning a politics built upon \u201cfear, ignorance, bigotry and smear.\u201d<\/p>\n
Six Republican senators eventually joined her, but Smith led the charge, and paid for it with lost committee assignments, political isolation and McCarthy\u2019s attempts to remove her from office.<\/p>\n
Joe DiPietro\u2019s \u201cConscience,\u201d which is about Smith and is having its Los Angeles premiere at International City Theatre, made me angry in all the right ways. Smith had lived through Hitler\u2019s rise and was confronting, barely five years after World War II, another demagogue using the familiar language of scapegoats, invented enemies and national purity.<\/p>\n
That DiPietro\u2019s play now resembles this morning\u2019s newspaper is not merely relevant. It is also heartbreaking.<\/p>\n
Sharon Gardner gives Smith intelligence, dry wit and tempered steel. She never turns her into a plaster saint; this is an ambitious politician who knows exactly what her conscience may cost. Jon Root\u2019s McCarthy is blustering, funny, charming and revolting, often within a single breath. That charisma matters: monsters are rarely handed power because they are dull.<\/p>\n
Dylan Wittrock brings warmth and vulnerability to William Lewis Jr., while Hollis Dohr gives Jean Kerr an intelligence and ambition independent of the man beside her.<\/p>\n
Under caryn desai\u2019s admirably restrained direction, the production trusts its audience to recognize the parallels without illuminating them in flashing red neon. \u201cConscience\u201d asks not simply how Smith found the courage to speak, but why so many people around her found silence more convenient.<\/p>\n
DiPietro builds his drama from names, dates and the public record.<\/p>\n
\u2018Conscience\u2019<\/p>\n
When: 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through Sept. 13.<\/p>\n
Where: International City Theatre in the Beverly O\u2019Neill Theater, 330 E. Seaside Way.<\/p>\n
Cost: Thursdays-Saturdays, $56; Sundays, $59. Advance discounts are available for students, seniors and others.<\/p>\n