Incident at Vichy, Writers’ Theatre Chicago. Lately the American theater seems so devoid of a conscience that just hearing Arthur Miller’s voice is refreshing–particularly in this top-notch production of his gripping, underappreciated morality play, written when he was still in his prime, about suspects rounded up by Nazi officers in occupied France. In this almost unbearably tense play, the prisoners await their inevitable fates and plot futilely to escape a rapidly deteriorating society in which only businessmen and aristocrats stand a chance of survival. Wise and sophisticated, Miller turns Platonic dialogues into compelling theater and demonstrates the breadth of complicity in acts of racism not only in Nazi Germany but around the globe by depicting a cross section of society: artists, tradesmen, businessmen, and nobility.
