“It’s hard to believe it really happened,” says the fictitious Judge Haywood, speaking about the Holocaust. Yet there he is, a “rock-ribbed” American jurist trying accused Nazi war criminals on their own turf in “Judgment at Nuremberg,” Abby Mann’s stage adaptation of his own Oscar-winning screenplay.
Now in its West Coast premiere run at Concord’s Willows Theatre, the play is given every chance to shine in this handsomely mounted production. But what worked on screen as a taut courtroom drama labors to quicken the pulse of a theater audience, and the fault lies mainly with Mann’s cerebral and overly cinematic script.
“Judgment at Nuremberg” takes place mostly in a courtroom in which three German jurists stand trial for crimes against humanity. Mann does take some of the action out of the courtroom, with scenes in a local tavern, in a jail cell and in the comfortable country home Judge Haywood occupies.
These scenes do reveal the lives of Germans emerging from the fog of war, but there are too many of them. The revolving sets spin so often, the actors were probably advised to take Dramamine before curtain.
The large cast of 17 is competent, with Mark Farrell as the German defense attorney, C. Dianne Manning as a tormented German Army widow and Robert Parsons as Nazi judge and prime defendant Emil Janning especially effective.
Parson’s Janning is a study in rat-faced self-justification. He remains balefully quiet through much of the action, but periodically explodes in thought-provoking monologues about the nature of complicity.
George Maguire as Judge Haywood brings the right measure of sober thoughtfulness to the role, though it’s hard to avoid comparing his performance to Spencer Tracy’s in the film version.
Director Richard Elliot manages the cast well and he takes full advantage of the Willows’ capabilities. Jean-Francois Revon’s meticulously decorated sets — which glide effortlessly from bombed-out rubble to wood-paneled courtroom — are especially impressive.
Yet there is a stodgy earnestness to Mann’s script that seems dated. “Judgment” was written when the world was just beginning to comprehend the scope of the Holocaust and is remembered as a powerful early artwork on the subject.
Forty years later, “Judgment at Nuremberg” does not pack the same punch. Not that there is anything funny about the subject matter, but the play is nearly totally devoid of humor. Such relentless dreariness needs some punctuation, which makes the two little laugh lines seem explosively funny. The play needs more of that.
Mann appears to link judges like Janning to the mass murder of the Final Solution, a fair argument on its face. Yet the playwright puts speeches in the mouth of the Nazi defendant which raise some doubts about his direct complicity. Does Mann entertain any moral ambiguity about the defendants’ guilt? You be the judge.
The tribunal’s legal outcome never seems in doubt. It gives nothing away to reveal that all are found guilty. After all, as one character says midway through the play, “All Germany is on trial.” But we already knew that.
Though there are no Jewish characters in “Judgment at Nuremberg,” the Jewish victims of the Holocaust loom large, their corpses appearing in stark clips of actual wartime footage. This is a subject that will always be timely. But in the wake of more powerful Holocaust-themed films and plays since “Judgment at Nuremberg,” today’s audiences require more.
“Judgment at Nuremberg” plays 7:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday through Sunday, with Wednesday and weekend matinees, through May 29, at Willows Theatre, 1975 Diamond Blvd., Concord. Tickets: $10-$35. Information: (925) 798-1300 or www.willowstheatre.org.