The Patriot Act

A man of principle is pressured by a repressive society into saving his skin by selling his soul, but is strengthened at the last moment by the need to be true to himself and by a reconciliation with his estranged son.

It sounds like a lost play by Arthur Miller, and this new drama by Lydia Bruce and Sandy Burns is openly a homage to the American master, not just by making their hero a Miller-like playwright, but by openly alluding both to Miller’s own tangles with the infamous Un-American Activities Committee in the fifties and to his plays All My Sons and The Crucible.

Set in the present, this fictional playwright has run afoul of American anti-terrorist laws by writing a play critical of the Iraq war. He’s offered the chance to save himself from Guantanamo by writing a pro-administration play and letting himself be displayed as a reformed sinner who has seen the light.

As directed by Adam Zahler, Will Lyman quietly underplays, letting us see the internal struggles with temptation but also the inner strength that will eventually triumph. Darri Johnson-Colton has some warm scenes as his wife, while Robert Pemberton as the tempter from Washington and Richard Arum as the right wing son struggle to flesh out characters written as near-cartoons.