The Value of Names Review
11th February – 1st March 2025
Written and directed by Jeffrey Sweet
Produced by Jacqui Garbett
Three actors nail the UK premiere of a darkly comedic and confrontational play with faultless performances that shine laser light on a shameful period of American history when lives were destroyed and careers wrecked.
…a darkly comedic and confrontational play with faultless performances that shine laser light on a shameful period of American history…
Award-winning playwright Jeffrey Sweet’s drama, The Value of Names, is a treat for theatre-goers at above-the-pub The White Bear Theatre in London’s Kennington. While the play has been praised as ‘a moral comedy in the best American liberal tradition’ with Sweet possessing ‘a devastating command of combative Jewish wit’ both the work and its author stride the decades and the distance with ease.
The Value of Names features American actor Katherine Lyle as up-and-coming actor Norma who is staying with her retired comedy actor father Benny, played by fellow American Jeremy Kareken, in his Malibu mansion in 1938 Hollywood.
With sharp dialogue and deeply conflicted characters, the show offers a gripping exploration of betrayal and redemption where the past weighs heavy on the future. In this taut and witty drama, the velvet voiced Tim Hardy plays the role of Leo, who is forced to face the haunting consequences of his past actions. He and Norma are both lead into a fierce, funny, and emotional battle as past personal history threaten future ambition.
Norma is caught in a seemingly insoluble dilemma which threatens to destroy an already tricky family relationship when she lands a career-defining role in a production directed by Leo, the man who betrayed her actor father years ago by testifying against him to the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
The Committee was set up in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyalty by citizens suspected of having Communist ties. This period of time in American 1950s history, known as McCarthyism, led to many innocent people, including Hollywood actors, falling victim to discrimination and blacklisting, their careers wrecked by false claims of links with Communism.
As Norma grapples with her ambition and loyalty to her blacklisted father, the embittered Benny must accept the painful possibility of his daughter working with the man who destroyed his career. Not a word is wasted or a gesture exaggerated in this precisely written and well-crafted production as three wilful characters become embroiled in 90 minutes of non-stop drama.
Go see.
Writer Jeffrey Sweet comments: ‘The script started with my becoming aware of the fact that the father of an actor I knew was blacklisted. She told me she had just been cast in a play, and I asked her what she would do if the director in the play had been someone who had given her father’s name to the House Un- American Activities Committee (HUAC). She told me it wasn’t likely to happen
‘But that got me started thinking “what if?”
‘The character of Leo is inspired by Elia Kazan and Jerome Robbins, who both famously named names to the Committee and spent the rest of their lives living with the anger of much of the community among whom they continued to work.’
Photographs © Zack Layton
Gill Martin
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