The Controversy at Valladolid

The ghost of Arthur Miller hovered over the Public Theater on Tuesday night, as the curtains opened on Jean-Claude Carriere's new play The Controversy of Valladolid.

This historical drama reimagines actual an actual debate held within the Catholic Church in 1550 on the humanity of the native Americans the Spanish were busily genociding in the New World. Gerry Bamman plays Bartolome de Las Casas, a 16th century Colin Powell devoted giving empire a human face. The spectacular failure of his effort at the drama's conclusion ought to at least give pause to the audience who seemed overeager to applaud his defense of the Indians in the face of the attacks by legal hired gun Sepulveda.

The production, which has just now opened in previews, needs to work on the ending a little more to really drive home the allegorical message of the play, which speaks to our present imperial misadventure in the Middle East as surely as Miller's Crucible spoke to McCarthyism. Although the message is somewhat botched by the current staging, the conclusion underscores a far more unsettling message than the one received by the woman sitting next to us, who leaned over to say at one point "That Sepulveda ... he's just like Bush!"

If it merely preached to the Manhattan choir in this fashion, The Controversy would finally be less interesting than it in fact is. What ought to leave even the righteous Democrat disturbed, however, is the plays caustic critique of good intentions, represented by Las Casas, which it shows can always transmogrify into horrific and unexpected outcomes. Salt in the wounds I know, but something we need, I think, to hear right now.

Now playing: Brian Wilson, Smile

Now reading: Giorgio Agamben, The Man Without Content