By Cynthia Citron
VENTURA, California –Playwright/director/actor Tom Dugan is in the process of writing his sixth one-man show, The Ghosts of Mary Lincoln. “I’m not playing Mary,” he says, “but I could.”
In the meantime, Dugan is busy preparing his successful show Nazi Hunter — Simon Wiesenthal, which ran at Beverly Hills’ Theatre 40 last year, for a run at the Rubicon Theatre in Ventura.
Simon Wiesenthal was an Austrian Jew who managed to survive the German concentration camps of World War II, but he and his wife lost 89 members of their family in the Holocaust. After the war, he devoted his life to hunting down Nazi war criminals and helping bring them to justice.
Despite all the horrific evidence to the contrary, there are still people who insist that the Holocaust never happened. “There are Holocaust deniers out there who never stop,” Dugan says. “So if I can continue Wiesenthal’s work of education and tolerance, I’ll have done what I set out to do. That’s the point of this work, Nazi Hunter — Simon Wiesenthal.
“I’m Irish-Catholic myself,” Dugan continues, “but my wife is Jewish, and we now have two beautiful Jewish boys, Eli, 10, and Miles, 8.”
It was Dugan’s father, a decorated soldier who helped liberate one of the Buchenwald camps, who stimulated his interest in the Holocaust, “and it has fascinated me all my life,” he says.
“My father wouldn’t talk about his experiences in the war,” Dugan explains. “But when I would ask him about them, he would give me an age-appropriate response.” It was only much later “that I finally got the full story from him, and as a playwright I feel an obligation to pass on the important lessons his generation learned.”
To play Wiesenthal, Dugan the actor shaves his head and wears a fat-suit that adds 50 or 60 pounds to his weight. And as Dugan the playwright, he doesn’t whitewash the perceived contradictions that some biographers have seen in Wiesenthal’s character and his reports of his exploits.
“For example, he used to tell of coming within inches of catching Adolf Eichmann,” Dugan says. “But later he acknowledged that the man he chased down the street may have been Eichmann’s brother. Wiesenthal had a big ego, but he was willing to change his facts when he discovered new information.”
Wiesenthal was also criticized for supporting Kurt Waldheim (United Nations Secretary General from 1972 to 1981 and Austria’s president from 1986 to 1992), who was accused of having been a Nazi war criminal. “You can’t blame anyone without absolute proof,” Wiesenthal said, and even though Waldheim had been a German officer in World War II, Wiesenthal claimed that there was no proof that he had committed war crimes. “Having been in the SS does not make you a criminal,” he said.
Dugan says, “Wiesenthal insisted that the legal process had to be respected. His attention to detail is why we’re talking about him now.”
He also notes that Wiesenthal was almost unintelligible in the ‘60s when he spoke about his work, “but later he was okay in English.” Dugan worked with dialect coach Joel Goldes to capture Wiesenthal’s Austrian accent. “An accent needs to be somewhere between accuracy and intelligibility,” he says, adding that Austrians who came to see his show gave him a “thumbs up” for his accent.
Dugan is also proud of the “thumbs up” he received from Civil War scholars for his script and portrayal of Robert E. Lee in Robert E. Lee-Shades of Gray. “His is a fascinating story,” he says. “Lee was actually against slavery and was pro-Union.” To understand Lee’s history, Dugan studied the Civil War general’s letters and documents housed in the Museum of the Confederacy, which is located in the garden of the massive White House of the Confederacy in Virginia.
Another of Dugan’s one-man shows is a presentation called Oscar to Oscar, which, contrary to what you might expect, does not deal with the humor of Oscar Wilde and Oscar Levant. Instead, it chronicles the two times that Dugan snuck into the Academy Awards ceremonies without an invitation.
Oscar to Oscar marked Dugan’s return to the stage after suffering what he calls “the dirty little secret of actors—stage fright.” He defines that malady as “the fear of forgetting your lines on stage.” To combat it, his acting coach, Robert Klein, suggested that he make up and perform a scene without dialogue, “which forced me to face my fears head on,” Dugan says. That tactic worked, and “after that, stage fright was not a dominant factor in my life,” he concludes.
His theater credits have included leading roles in The Man Who Came to Dinner, Misery, Amadeus, and Dublin Carol, and his TV and film credits include Bones, Friends, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Practice, Chicago Hope, and Dave, among many others in his 25 years as a professional actor.
For Nazi Hunter, he is particularly pleased to have veteran director and Rubicon’s artistic associate Jenny Sullivan in charge. The daughter of actor Barry Sullivan, she has won awards for her direction of Rubicon productions You Can’t Take It With You, Hamlet, Art, and Dancing at Lughnasa, as well as directing many other plays and films around the country.
Dugan notes that he holds a talkback with his audiences after the presentation of Nazi Hunter. Asked if he gets feedback from Holocaust deniers, he says, “It’s not to their advantage to come to this play. It’s an emotional arena and they have no legs to stand on. Besides, they don’t listen. Listening is the last thing they do.
“Only the highest-minded people come to plays,” he continues. “And to this play we get a lot of Holocaust survivors and the children and grandchildren of survivors.”
He notes that at one talkback during Nazi Hunter’s run at Theatre 40, a woman spoke up who had apparently grown up in a “household of denial. She knew nothing about the Holocaust and wasn’t allowed to talk about the war,” he says.
She identified herself as the great-granddaughter of Adolf Eichmann.
Nazi Hunter — Simon Wiesenthal was nominated last year for three Ovation awards: best play in intimate theater, best actor (Dugan) and best director (Sullivan). Dugan also has also been nominated for best solo performance by the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle. “We’ll know about that one in March,” he says.
Dugan has performed this show at a 1,000-seat theater in Toronto and a 7,000-seat theater at Bob Jones University. He notes “it also did well in Davenport, Iowa, even though they didn’t understand the word meshugena.”
The play does well, he believes, because he has followed the advice given to him by his friend, actor Jack Klugman. “Something’s gotta happen,” Klugman said. “There has to be a sense of urgency onstage.”
Nazi Hunter — Simon Wiesenthal, produced by Rubicon Theatre Company. Opens Feb. 18. Plays Wed at 2 and 7 pm, Thur-Fri at 8 pm, Sat at 2 and 8 pm, and Sun at 2 pm. Through March 11. Tickets: $39-$59, Students $25. Rubicon Theatre, 1006 E. Main St., Ventura. 805.667.2900. rubicontheatre.org.
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Citron is Los Angeles bureau chief for San Diego Jewish World. She may be contacted at cynthia.citron@sdjewishworld.com