Incident at Vichy (1973)

With his trademark unrelenting honesty and conviction, Arthur Miller examines a major Holocaust issue: the failure to assume responsibility and the consequent moral and social guilt of those who refuse to fight evil. Set in a detention room in Vichy, France during the 1942 German occupation, a number of people have been rounded up and are awaiting interrogation before being sent to concentration camps. It is soon obvious that they are Jews with false papers that will not stand up to close scrutiny. While individual stories flow past the juror’s eye, events soon focus on Leduc (Harris Yulin), a psychiatrist, and an Austrian prince (Richard Jordan), who recognizes his guilt of silent complicity and his failure to act responsibly while the Germans rose to power. Miller raises theoretical and ideological arguments and brings up the question of where responsibility lies. Notions of the nature of personal sacrifice, issues of personal blame, and a debate on how much each person is obligated to help in a larger crisis are addressed in this truly important and provocative television event.

"Are you saying all these people are dead? It's inconceivable!"

Set in a holding room Vichy, France, in 1942, this powerful play by Arthur Miller introduces nine men who have been picked up on suspicion that they are Jews or Jewish sympathizers. Waiting to be questioned are an actor, a waiter, a businessman, a psychoanalyst, a Marxist railroad worker, a gypsy, an ancient Hasid, a fourteen-year-old boy, and an Austrian prince. As they talk and begin to share bits of information, Miller examines the tendency of ordinary men to become immobilized when faced with "an atrocity...that is inconceivable," to refuse to believe that such behavior can possibly happen in a civilized world. At the same time, he also examines those others, the Nazis and their collaborators in France, who serve an ideology, not mankind, those who subordinate themselves so completely to an abstract concept that they believe "there are no persons anymore."

Directed by Stacy Keach, who also wrote the background music, the production features a talented cast, including Rene Auberjonois as the actor, Allen Garfield as the panicked and fatalistic artist, and Andrew Robinson as the German major who has second thoughts about his role. Harris Yulin shines in the very demanding and crucial role of the psychoanalyst Leduc, and his confrontation with Richard Jordan, as the Austrian prince who has failed to act when he had the chance, is heart-stopping. The external action takes place with only one set and virtually no props, focusing the audience's attention on the characters' intense psychological crises, through which Miller examines the tendency of men to believe that the world is essentially rational. Gradually, the truth about the waiting train and its destination emerges, and the sense of horror becomes palpable.

As the men, one by one, disappear from the set, the drama focuses on the psychoanalyst and the Austrian prince, one Jewish and one Christian, one of whom wants desperately to live, and the other of whom has already attempted suicide. Beautifully paced, with a very moving climax, the play is an unusually sophisticated treatment of the Nazi horrors. Miller does not see events purely in black and white, showing instead that everyone creates his own reality to keep from accepting the unthinkable. Written in 1964, while Miller was representing the New York Herald Tribune at the Frankfurt war crimes trials of officials from Auschwitz, this play is Miller's creative reaction to the atrocities he has heard first-hand--and one of his most powerful plays. Mary Whipple
August 21, 2005

Good Work from the Berkeley Theatre Archive

The action of this play takes place in a single room (and a single act), and this version makes no attempt to change this, so don't watch it if you're looking for filmic frills. That said, the set is well-done and the performances are very good, good enough, in fact, that it's hard to point out any particular standouts. (Star Trek fans will note the appearances of Rene Auberjonois and a very young-looking Andrew Robinson, billed as Andy Robinson, as Leduc the actor and the (German) Major.)

The BTA series was originally done for television, so the image quality is not great, but both picture and sound seem to be as good as "new."

Like all the Kultur DVDs of the Broadway Theatre Archive I've seen, this version has no extras to speak of. Aside from the program itself, there is a short of previews of other titles and a scene selection option. March 20, 2003

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