In several scenes of Jake Broder’s fact-based play “Sense of Decency,” U.S. Army psychiatrist Douglas M. Kelley uses old-fashioned magic tricks to impress and outsmart the men he meets, including imprisoned Nazi leader Hermann Göring.
But it doesn’t take long for the manipulative Göring — who’s awaiting justice at the Nuremberg Trials in post-WWII Germany — to outwit Kelley and prove he’s the master of deception in the 90-minute psycho-thriller that made its world premiere Saturday at North Coast Repertory Theatre. Inspired by journalist Jack El-Hai’s 2013 book “The Nazi and the Psychiatrist,” the play examines the unlikely bond that formed between these two attention-craving men, whose affluent but unhappy childhoods, intelligence, addictions and final acts bore striking similarities.
Co-directed by North Coast Rep artistic director David Ellenstein and Broder, the play has a fascinating backstory, strong performances and frightening relevance to America’s contemporary political and social media landscape.
Kelley was one of the Army doctors assigned to assess the Nazi prisoners’ mental fitness for trial in 1946. From the start, the ambitious Kelley planned to turn his interviews into a profitable book based on his theory that an undiagnosed Nazi “pathogen” turned regular law-abiding men into psychotic monsters capable of genocide. Instead, he discovered the only “virus” infecting their minds was state-sponsored propaganda, prejudice and, in the case of Göring, ruthless opportunism — something America had already perfected with its race and immigration policies in the early 20th century.
Leading the cast as Kelley is Brendan Ford, who takes his character on an impressive arc from mild-mannered, high-minded and empathetic to paranoid, cruel and narcissistic. Frank Corrado is a cast standout with his sly, still and eerily understated performance as Göring. And Lucy Davenport sympathetically portrays both men’s very different wives: Dukie Kelley and Emmy Göring.
Brendan Ford, left, and Lucy Davenport in “Sense of Decency” at North Coast Repertory Theatre.
(Courtesy of Aaron Rumley)
Marty Burnett’s filthy prison cell scenic design, complemented by Matt Novotny’s haunting lighting and Steven Leffue’s pulsing sound design, gradually takes on a warped, nightmarish quality as Kelley’s mental health declines. Elisa Benzoni designed the period costumes and Matt FitzGerald designed projections.
The play’s script could still use some polishing and focus. In an attempt to cover too much historic and biographical ground, there are seemingly dozens of short scenes, some just a few lines long, so script feels unnecessarily choppy. The opening “magic show” scene serves as a bookend to the finale, gets it gets the play off to a slow start. And the tone of the piece, with unsettling and awkward humor and an unnecessary death scene, wobbles at times.
Perhaps to aid in plot exposition, the first act is filled with brief conversations between Kelley and his wife about his interviews with Göring. Some of these scenes feel unnatural, particularly when Dukie describes in detail how her husband should buck the system to get what he wants. Perhaps this really happened, but his character seems easily intellectually outmatched for a man with a doctorate from Columbia University.
Kelley’s story was largely forgotten until El-Hai’s book — soon to be a major motion picture — came out. The timing of the thought-provoking “Sense of Decency” couldn’t be better, with antisemitism and White supremacy spiraling worldwide, and Donald Trump — who recently used one of Hitler’s key phrases about immigrants “poisoning the blood” of America — set to run for a second presidential term.
‘Sense of Decency’
When: 7 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays; 8 p.m. Fridays; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays; 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Through May 12
Where: North Coast Repertory Theatre, 987 Lomas Santa Fe Drive, Solana Beach
Tickets: $49-$74
Phone: (858) 481-1055