Ed Rampell – Hollywood Progressive
In playwright Joe DiPietro’s Conscience the hero – or rather, heroine – is a real-life historical figure who truly did do something rather heroic: Senator Margaret Chase Smith (Sharon Gardner). Maine and senators have been much in the news lately, but in 1950 Smith was the only woman serving in the U.S. Senate. And she intrepidly used that seat and stature to challenge America’s Cold War redbaiter in chief: Senator Joe McCarthy (Jon Root), who starting on Feb. 9, 1950, never saw a bed a “Red” wasn’t hiding under. Read more…
Anita W. Harris – Long Beach Post
“Conscience” offers a chilling and sobering — yet still entertaining — reminder of how our patriotic ideals are at stake when we allow “totalitarian techniques,” as Smith called them in 1950, to undercut how we define being American. Read more…