Before there was “I Love Lucy” there was “The Goldbergs,” starring, written and produced by Gertrude Berg, who basically created the sitcom genre and set the template for everything from “I Love Lucy” to “All in the Family” to “Modern Family.”
Now having its world premiere at Skokie’s Northlight Theatre, James Sherman’s “The First Lady of Television,” puts Berg front and center in a period piece embedded with a razor’s edge of contemporary urgency and spliced through with comedy.
Set in 1950 during a single rehearsal for “The Goldbergs,” Sherman dives into the wanton destruction of Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s attempt to purge the U.S. of communists — or rather, anyone his House Committee on Un-American Activities accused of being one.
Directed by BJ Jones, ‘First Lady’ is hilarious, tragic and alarming. It’s also a glorious spotlight for actor Cindy Gold, who plays Gertrude Berg and her sitcom alter-ego, Molly Goldberg. The latter is the kind matriarch of “The Goldbergs,” the fictional Bronx immigrant family at the heart of the television show (which started life in 1929 as a radio show of the same name). The former is similar but with an indomitable, do-not-try-me authority that can shut down fools with a single look.
As ‘First Lady’ points out, many of McCarthy’s targets were Jewish and/or activists for civil rights and labor movements and/or artists creating “subversive” content. Among the thousands ruined by the accusations and subsequent blacklisting: Philip Loeb (William Dick), who co-starred as Molly’s husband Jake on “The Goldbergs.”
When Loeb’s name shows up in the “Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television” pamphlet — a roster of suspected communists that was distributed by some of “The Goldbergs” biggest advertising sponsors — Berg is faced with two options. Fire Loeb, and keep the show. Keep Loeb, and CBS cancels the show. Berg’s dilemma infuses the show with the tension of an over-tuned violin string just about to snap.
Save the invaluable Joe Dempsey as “The Goldbergs” director Walter Hart, everyone in “The First Lady of Television” plays dual roles. Dick is Loeb off camera, Jake on camera. Ty Fanning is the Goldberg’s son Sammy on camera. Off camera, he’s Larry Robinson — the slightly dim, admittedly bad actor playing Sammy. Sarah Coakley Price is impassioned McCarthyist Arlene McQuade, the actress playing Rosalie, the Goldberg’s wholesome TV daughter. Mark David Kaplan is Eli Mintz, the needle-sharp actor who plays the doddering elderly Uncle David on “The Goldbergs.”
Sherman — a founding member of the Playwrights Ensemble at the late, great Victory Gardens Theater — has structured the 75-minute drama beautifully, although it’s about 15 minutes shy of a fully satisfying theatrical outing.
The story is bookended by a pair of monologues, first from Molly and the last from Gertrude. Molly’s opener is all sunny American idealism, wrapped in a Sanka commercial. In the closer, Gertrude goes rogue, scrapping the advertiser-dictated script and going to a place of ruthless defiance that’ll make the hair on the back of your neck stand up
Jones’ ensemble keeps you in their thrall from start to finish. As Loeb, Dick brings home the anguish and the anger of a man whose 40-year career is being destroyed because he’s a Jew who founded Actors Equity Association, among other pro-labor accomplishments. His story ends with a sobering shock that’s the absolute antithesis of the sunny sitcom genre he helped pioneer.
Kaplan’s wry, earnest Eli Mintz is intensely watchable, effortlessly putting matters in context as Mintz offers a history lesson on labor rights and the chilling moral turpitude of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and its ruinous blacklists.
As Arlene, Price is shrilly believable as a young woman who wants to make America safe again, purged of the nefarious communists on the verge of taking over. As she speaks glowingly of her “daddy” and how he raised her, it’s clear that she’s a victim of some serious misinformation.
Jeffrey D. Kmiec’s set cleverly mimics that of “The Goldbergs,” adding a mounted television overhead where clips of MASH, “I Love Lucy” and “All in the Family” flicker pre-show. A massive billboard for Sanka looms above, signifying the outsize, ominous influence deep-pocketed advertisers and corporations had in creating and enforcing the government’s hunt for so-called “commies.”
Since the late 1980s, Jones has proven again and again that he’s a director with a gift for addressing social issues with a deft hand that laces comedy and tragedy together, with nary a seam. He’s got a powerhouse cast and a fantastic script to work with here, and the results are golden.