Judgment at Nuremberg

We have centuries to continue examining the horrors of the Holocaust in World War II. The late playwright Abby Mann's 1959 TV drama, brilliantly filmed by Stanley Kramer in 1961, "Judgment at Nuremberg" dealt with the Nuremberg, Germany, trials of the late 1940s by placing a man of honor in charge of sitting judgment on the masterminds and servants of those who created such insanity in their country from 1932-45. In fact, it was one of the first instances of advancing the principle of international accountability for crimes of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The L.A. Theatre Works, which normally plays radio-style with little staging (500+ so far), has also set up touring shows in cities which do not usually see such kinds of reader's theater. And while almost never showing them in L.A, except while recording them, they successfully added their eight-actor radio theatre production at an important event: a gala event at the Beverly Hills Wallis Center for the Performing Arts, in honor of the Los Angeles-based lawyer, E. Randol Schoenberg.

Over a decade, Schoenberg successfully fought for a return of Nazi-looted artwork from the government of Vienna (including winning in court over the U.S.), specifically for the paintings of Austrian painter Gustav Klimt, the subject of the 2015 film, "The Woman in Gold," in addition to making it a fundraiser for LATW.

Sensibly directed by Brian Kite and superlatively acted by Kip Gilman in the Spencer Tracy role in the film, lead Judge Haywood; Shannon Holt as widow Bertholt, in the Marlene Dietrich role, as well as teenager Lisa Lindow, the role Judy Garland played; Matthew Floyd Miller as the defense attorney, Oscar Rolfe; Dylan Jones as the servant, Frau Halberstadt, and as a witness for the prosecution, Maria; Ron Bottita as an American general and a Nazi bureaucrat; Josh Clark as the main prosecutor; Jeff Gardner as another American captain, a survivor of the horrors, as well as another judge, and especially Jon Vickery as the third American Judge, along with the most important of those on trial, the Nazi-supporter with a conscience, Judge Ernst Janning.

It was a memorable evening, with the discussion afterward by Schoenberg (grandson of composer Arnold Schoenberg) and Professor Geoffrey Cowan making the unhappy connections between the way the Nazis ran roughshod over Germans and the current U.S. leader and his administration (which caused some laughs of recognition during the show).

This kind of one-off, marrying live theater to historical motifs, should regularly be made, so that both ways of thought can teach us valuable lessons.

"Judgment at Nuremberg" North American tour played on September 27 at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. For information or tickets, visit http://www.latw.org/Tour/tour/nuremberg.html