Displaying items by tag: Frank Hall

Thursday, 07 September 2023 12:17

'The Innocence of Seduction' a Rollicking Recount of a Fight Over Comic Book Bans in the 1950s

John Blick as Archer St. John in “The Innocence of Seduction” playing at City Lit Theater through October 8.

It’s hard to imagine now, but in 1954, the U.S. Senate began investigating publishers of comic books, tapping psychologists who linked a rise in juvenile delinquency to comics depicting lurid stories and violent criminals. The nation was perhaps primed for the investigation, as the move came during the Senate’s ongoing McCarthy era pogrom against suspected communists during the Red Scare.

“The Innocence of Seduction” recounts this inconceivable (maybe not given book ban efforts today) but true story, and so delightfully and with such panache that you will be completely entertained. WIth a passionate cast of 15 players, and an inventive script by Mark Pracht (who also directs), each scene opens much like a panel in a comic book. This is Pracht’s second work in a projected “Four-Color Trilogy” about the illustrated periodicals and is the opener for City Lit’s forty-third season.

We meet real characters from actual comic book publishers, including Entertainment Comics’ William Gaines (played with gusto by Sean Harklerode), and his counterparts from St. John Publishing (Archer St. John is played by John Blick.)and Quality Comics. Key individuals in the saga are accompanied by their true-life, fleshed out backstories, which in the 1950’s made them vulnerable to compromise by background work done by J. Edgar Hoover’s minions at the FBI.

Among these are Matt Baker (Brian Bradford), a Black closeted gay artist of romance comics, and Janice Valleau (Megan Clarke), creator of a women detective comics and artist behind the Archie Comics spin-off “Veronica and Betty.” Representing expert psychologists connecting comics to social ills is Dr. Frederic Wertham, also a real life figure, whose commentary is interjected in vignettes very much like a comic book panel. Played so very well by Frank Nall, Dr. Wertham’s scenes gradually move from restrained scientific commentary to ever more dire rants and ultimately, darkly comic interjections.

Notable in the production are a 1950-styled big-screen for presenting comic images—credit to G. "Max" Maxin IV for Scenic, Lighting and Projection Design. Exceptional work was done by Beth Laske-Miller (Costume Designer), Petter Wahlbäck (Composer and Sound Design), Alison Dornheggen (Violence and Intimacy Design), and Jeff Brain (Props Design).

“The Innocence of Seduction” shows how, as politics entered an arena in which it didn’t belong, the public responded to this newly contrived hot-button issue, with comic book burnings blossoming in towns around the U.S. Playwright Pracht has packed it all in this work, and we meet Senators Robert Henrickson (Paul Chakrin) and Estes Kefauver (Robin Trevino), as well as jurist Charles Murphy (Chuck Munro), who was appointed the first arbiter of what could pass muster under the comic book publishing code.

Comics long bore the mark of that era, a self-policing censorship program evident on the covers of everything from Superman to The Thing through 2011: the Comics Code Authority seal of approval. Today we have abandoned fears of what at the time was deemed a threat to society. The code forbade the use of “horror or terror” in comic titles and banned the depiction of “walking dead, torture, vampires and vampirism, ghouls, cannibalism, and werewolfism.” Now societal backlash is whipped up by politicians over "wokeness, " Black history, and LGBTQ education.

Pracht shows us that Judge Murphy’s thumbs up or down was at times capricious and idiosyncratic - as formalized censorship always is and must be. The comic-styled program for the show draws a connection to the surge in attempts to banned books, including graphic novels, in schools and libraries today.

While aspects of the various personal human dramas play out in overdrawn melodrama, perhaps this is in keeping with the subject as well. Regardless, this is a highly recommended show, which runs through October 8 at City Lit Theater, 1020 W. Bryn Mawr in Chicago.

Published in Theatre in Review

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