Rallying Cries: Three Plays

by Eric Bentley

Called "the theater conscience of our times," Eric Bentley has been both a leading critic and a playwright. Rallying Cries presents three of his best known works: Are You Now or Have You Ever Been, successfully staged around the world and on television; The Recantation of Galileo Galilei; and the controversial From the Memoirs of Pontius Pilate, a work initially rejected as insufficiently Christian by its commissioning theater but then successfully produced in New York at the Actors Studio and American Jewish Theater.

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Eric Russell Bentley was a British-born American theater critic, playwright, singer, editor, and translator whose work shaped twentieth-century theatrical discourse. Educated at University College, Oxford, and Yale University, where he earned his doctorate, he later taught at Black Mountain College and Columbia University and served as theatre critic for The New Republic. Known for his incisive and uncompromising criticism, he became one of the foremost English-language authorities on Bertolt Brecht, translating, editing, and performing Brecht’s work and recording landmark albums of Brecht songs. Bentley was also an accomplished playwright, with Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been, drawn from Un-American Activities Committee hearings, becoming his most produced play. He appeared for decades as a cabaret performer and was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. An advocate for artistic and political freedom, he publicly opposed the Vietnam War and later spoke openly about his homosexuality and its influence on his work.

Reviews

[Robert Federline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ordered this trilogy of plays by Eric Bentley because of a Youtube clip showing the excerpt from this play of the testimony of Zero Mostel before the House Unamerican Committee. Imagine, then, my disappointment when I found that this one play was edited to remove the testimonies of certain witnesses, including Zero Mostel!

Nonetheless, this is an interesting collection of three dramas around the common theme of government overreaching, and the people who are affected thereby. The first of the three dramas, "Are You Now, Or Have You Ever Been . . . " is a compilation, in dramatic form, of testimony taken before the House Unamerican Committee against the then stalwarts of Hollywood. The HUAC is legendary for the now-famous McCarthy hearings (although Joe McCarthy was not mentioned once. Many of the witnesses subpoenaed from Hollywood appear heroic, but there are also those who capitulate quickly and sell out others, whether accurately or not. There are also those who paint the stereotypical picture of Hollywood with its banal parties and superficiality who appear to be identified with the Communist party because they heard there was a party and showed up. Unfortunately, the play has a dated feel because of the manner in which history is now viewed, and the short memories displayed by the populace for significant events in our own, rather than ancient, history.

The second drama is a view of the trial of Galileo Galilei from a different vantage point usually employed. Although the Catholic Church does not come off well in this portrayal (as it never does in the hindsight of history in this confrontation) it is in some ways a more empathetic view of the Church's position in the world in facing this conflict. It does show the Church as being entirely Earthly-minded in its decisions, and the decisions reflecting not its theology nor its ideals, but a base pragmatism in controlling the minds and hearts and futures of its adherents from a political perspective.

The final drama is the trial of Jesus, the Christ, but taken from the perspective - dramatically portrayed as the memoirs - of Pontius Pilate. Jesus is definitely not in the role of the Son of God in this play, and is shown to be in personal turmoil. He only comes to believe in his own messianic mission because of the words and actions of others. It is difficult to imagine if Bentley wishes Jesus to be a fraud or a hero. Ultimately, he becomes a messiah by standing for ideals and beliefs, rather than from any theological perspective.