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

Jeffrey Sweet delivers a dark play about a previously blacklisted Jewish comic who refuses to let go of the past, even if it’ll destroy him

February 14, 2025 16:29
Norma (Katherine Lyle) & Benny (Jeremy Kareken) in The Value of Names - photo credit Zack Layton.jpeg
Katherine Lyle as Norma, an aspiring actress (left), and Jeremy Kareken as her father, Benny, a retired comic who was blacklisted from Hollywood in the 1950s. Photo: Zack Layton
2 min read

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]

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Theatre