THEATER : 'THE TRAIL OF LEE HARVEY OSWARLD' ARRIVES

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75-00149R000600150010-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: November 11, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 25, 1998
• Sequence Number: 10
• Publication Date: November 7, 1957
• Content Type: NSPR

;
TIE TRIAL OF LEE HARVEY OSWALD
.. ? .by yyy sod Leon
base; on an idc:a by Harold
sle.nbero and Arnram Ducovny, Staged
I thy Tune Yalmen; lighting be Jules
?. Fiber; .1.,;:inqs by Ron.r. Wagnor;
COSLrrli7:3 by Thoeni V. A:oredge; 6rt
!. ? .eireetor, Lewis Zack;; brutage
? - jo,ph 0?0.,:0; production stage man.
?., ? ? ???. houncs. Presented by Gen?
producer, Jay Fuchs.
,e At a Ah IA Theatre, 245 West 52d
Lut C.);/,1:,' Peter Masterson
Jud7n Morton Dan Priest
Clifton .James
Ralph Waite
,
. John Gerstad, Glen Kezer,
Shark, Barton Stone, Garrett
er,, Charles Randall, Williarn
.?ne Shropshire, Louisa Stubbs.
Ner I 12UR:41 Teals
NOV 7 .
-- Sanitized Approved For Release : CAWRDP75-00149R000600150010-2
40, ??
ter: 'The 1 a...?
7
(yr 7
Oswald'? A ?
r t.-,.......r4................. rrives
--
i Jack Ruby, thr the play pos-
."--/- -.4. .
__ _ ?
- -,--? tc) tulates that Ruby failed to
la .L,-atic Method 0 kill Oswald and we are
? 0 watching Oswald's subse-
t; qucnt trial.
if This is either a fairly adroit
, Ei
of Sensationalism
u piece of stagecraft on the
17 part of the playwrights, Am-
ram Ducovny and Leon Fried.
man, in the second place, or
on the part of Harold Stein-
berg and Mr. Ducovny, who
are attributed with the re-
sponsibility for dreaming -up ;
' the idea of the play in the '
I first place. So what the 'play
? finally consists of is a kind
of, fictional documentary.
,The audience is invited to
?
be jury (a device in itself not
exactly original) at Oswald's .1
trial. The evidence for the i
prosecution and the defense '
is presented. According to the
authors, "All testimony given
by prosecution and defense
witnesses is based on actual ;
"
evidence uncovered in the in-
..; vestigation of the assassina- ;
tian." ,
Isrow this statement begs
..ri. awful lot of questions: I
:ay CLIVE BARNES
question of who killed
. Kennedy is not
rzone 7 that properly speaking
concerns this column If
cvi-
dcn were produced to dein-
. on..): ate th,:,z Brutus was per-
innocent of any part in
the assassination of Julius
Caesar ,t would not affect
?.:-.anyon's estimation of Shake-
,
rspeare's play.
,? ...Allis was the initial thought
or at least the. initial prem- ?
YRGHT
ise-T-that I brought to "The r
of Lee Harvey Oswald,"
-which opened at the AIWA
i;?? Theater Sunday night. Was it
good play, whatever facts it
!,..4-produced or disputed? That,
I felt, was surely the question ?!
to be answered.. (I must
warn you that one of the
problems. of seeing any trial
r play for a critic is that when
he comes back he instinc-
; .tively starts writing as if he
f. were preparing a harangue
fOr a jury.)
r ' Yet then I asked- myself
; why the play had been pro-
duced. There could be three
1 answers. One is that the
people producing it thought
they had a good controversial
subject that might prove a?
box-office bonanza; another
: is, that they seriously be-
lieved that the question of
r. Oswald's guilt or innocence
lad been insufficiently es-
Finally, their mo-
! ,
-ives might be a mixture of
? both of these.
:Is this play, in a phrase,
meant to be sensationalism
' ca. propaganda? Certainly
t iere is a flavor of sensation.'
aiism in the dramatic method,
.k?lhich embeds one enormous
II in a seeming tissue
'
' Peter Masterson
"Actual evidence uncovered"
?sounds pretty much like
the truth, yet this is cer-
tainly not so, because much
of the evidence is conflicting.
Also we must ask, "uncov-
ered by whom?"
I doubt also whether au-
thors, however sincere or
gifted, can in the course of a
? m g t be
dan erous procedure.
FOIAb3b
CPYRGHT
F nally there is the "ev
den e" purported to be give
by swald himself when h
is p t up on the stand in hi
own defense. Here he i
mad to say that he was th
victi of a conspiracy, an
this ssertion is perhaps in
' tend d as the emotive climax
of t, e play. If Oswald had
lived and if he had made
such an assertion' then per-
haps this would have been
inves igated. But he didn't
live, ad he didn't make such
an as ertion so it couldn't be
hives igated.
WI n I started I admit.'
ted t t who killed the Presi-
dent as not here my con-
:ern. ut many people feel
:hat ither the whole truth
s not known or, at the very
east, he whole truth is not
seen t be known. It seems
ible use such doubts as,
the ba is for an Agatha Chris-
tiC-liku courtroom drama. The
tneate is a fine arena forrn
olitic I debate, but not for
s.:rious forensic argument:),
aid I hink it is wrong to
3e th discussion surround-
r g ?,vh t is one of the great
tagedi s of the 20th century,
an e -cuse for such a nec-
sari' flimsy play.
Havi said that let me'
1,,egest that it is also not a
ary g od play. All court- ,
d mas have a certain
dest fascination (I , can ,
rer ear those classic
a Auclience,Becorne-s?ju-r-i
? for Fictional Case '
n
e
s?? jection sustained" Or "Objec-
s ? ?
?' tion overruled" without wish-
e? ing I had been to law school)
d but the arguments 'are well-
- thumbed to say the least.
How many . bullets? How
, many. shots? How many as-
sailants? Unless they have led
very sheltered lives, most of
the audience will find most
of the play extraordinarily
? familiar.
The play is rewardingly
? staged, with Robin Wagner's
boldly, diagrammatic. court-
room, lending itself to pro-
??jecting slides and film clips
of evidence that prove by far
? the most effectively di?a-
." matic part of the evening. ,
' Tunc Yalman's direction is
? well-paced, and invests
certain' variety into a play
that must of necessity be
Monotonous in its structure,
whereby merely one witness
after another takes the stand.
The acting is also efficient,
with Peter Masterson looking
apprc.-,riutely bewildered and
mixed-up as Oswald, and
Clifton James (for 11.,.?, prose-
cution) and Ralph Waite (for
the defense) arguing their
dcaitsieosnailn crs, tc.i,y?,11y treffec-
tivea-
style.
If it were hatter' play I
admit I would consider it
a perversion of democratic
ajicattaftPa011?,1
a
;O truth. The - our courtroom drama e
to lie has nothing fairly balance complex and
do with President Kennedy 1 conflicting, evidence upon-,- s
o his assassin; the . lie con- 1 which an audience can justi- v
ck..rns Lee I;arvey Oswald and fiably be invited to offer an ro
.! opinion. This is a parody of m
, a court of law passing itself ? ne
off' as something like fre
Sanitized ApprovetTFor 'Rd