The Value of Names review: ‘a bitter ode to the victims of McCarthyism’

What’s in a name? For Benny Silverman, the retired television comedy actor at the centre of Jeffrey Sweet’s 1983 play, an awful lot, because his was stolen from him.

Blacklisted in Hollywood in the 1950s for alleged communist sympathies, Benny — played with exquisite bitterness by Jeremy Kareken — is part of a generation of writers, actors and directors, many of whom were Jewish, whose careers hit a standstill when their names were dragged through the mud at the height of McCarthyism.

Jeremy Kareken as Benny Silverman. Photo: Zack Layton[Missing Credit]

Jeffrey Sweet’s claustrophobic and ruminating play is a 90-minute ode to that generation; a small monument to the grief and despair of those whose careers were marred. Struggling to find work for years, Benny eventually ‘made it’ as an adored television star, but his oeuvre is limited to sell-out sitcoms like “Rich but Happy” and he spends his vintage years lounging solo in a mansion overlooking over the Pacific, painting lousy pictures.

But the pain doesn’t stop there. Benny’s aspiring actress daughter Norma (played by the joyful Katherine Lyle) has been cast in a play. Her director, Leo (Tim Hardy), is Benny’s former best friend who betrayed him all those years ago, by testifying against him to the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Not only that, Norma, in a bid to reject her nepo baby birthright, has decided she doesn’t want to be haunted by the baggage of her father’s sitcom success and has opted to ditch the Silverman name. Uncomfortable confrontations ensue.

Tim Hardy as Leo. Photo: Zack Layton[Missing Credit]

Kareken is marvellously convincing as a resentful Benny, whose jokester facade shields a powerful anger that simmers beneath the surface of his performance. Between the relentless dad jokes and avoidant rants is a man full of dejection. Leo, who used to act alongside Benny in the New Labour Players, is keen to reconcile. But forgiveness is inconceivable to the indignant comic. As an audience, we get the sense that holding onto the anger is destroying him, but that doesn’t matter. Benny would rather be bitter and alone than a fool.

Tim Hardy as Leo (left), and Jeremy Kareken as Benny. Photo: Zack Layton[Missing Credit]

Kareken is marvellously convincing as a resentful Benny, whose jokester facade shields a powerful anger that simmers beneath the surface of his performance

A current of the play is Jewish identity, and the generational gulf that separates father and daughter. Some of the most pleasing scenes are the pacy exchanges between Benny and Norma, who spar with loving familiarity, even though we’re told they haven’t spoken properly in two years.

Part of the intelligence of Sweet’s script is both parties are sympathetic. Norma accuses her father of being obsessed with antisemitism and unable to stop shoehorning the Nazis into every argument. She doesn’t seem to understand what it meant for her father to have been a left-wing actor in the 1950s with a surname like Silverman. Six of the Hollywood Ten, who were imprisoned and blacklisted for refusing to cooperate with the HUAC were Jewish, after all. Meanwhile, Benny’s bitterness makes him an island. He can’t see beyond his own painful past, alienating him from his daughter and the future she’s hopeful about. Their miscommunication is heartbreaking.

Jeremy Kareken as Benny (left) & Katherine Lyle as Norma[Missing Credit]

Hardy’s presence as an arrogant and not-quite-repentant Leo is a gift to the play. He delivers his lines with a honey-tongued, devilish finesse. But the final third of The Value of Names gets itself slightly tongue-tied, as the two friends-turned-enemies talk in circles about old wounds.

From left: Tim Hardy as Leo, Katherine Lyle as Norma & Jeremy Kareken as Benny. Photo: Zack Layton[Missing Credit]

Forcing an audience to bear witness to the bitter end of 30-year-old broigus and a man tortured by his own grief might be honest, but it’s not edifying. We’re left to gawk at irresolution. Sweet is brave to resist catharsis, but we are never once transported outside of Benny’s miserable mansion on the Pacific coast. Maybe that’s the point.

★★★★

The Value of Names, The White Bear Theatre, Kennington, until March 1