Historical Nightmare Evolved Into a Political Obsession for Playwright Hirsch

SAN DIEGO —  On the phone, one can hear John Hirsch’s voice tremble, long-distance, as he reluctantly answers questions about the Holocaust.

It is a subject that Hirsch, the Canadian director and adapter of the Oliver North-inspired “Coriolanus” at the Old Globe Theatre, never works with directly. But the historical nightmare that cost Hirsch his entire family--his parents, a brother, grandfather and several cousins--when he was a child evolved into the political passion that drives his work.

“From a town of 800 Jewish souls, only three people survived, and I was one of them,” Hirsch said from his home in Toronto.

“I guess . . . it’s some kind of miracle or sheer luck or the will of God. But the main thing is that I can direct and communicate things that are important to me.

“I suppose that must be some kind of justification (for my survival). Whatever I feel about these things is in my work. My feeling of care for the survival of humanity and my concern for ensuring any goodness that we have has to do with expressing those things through the productions I do.”

When the Old Globe asked Hirsch to direct “Coriolanus,” managing director Thomas Hall said that neither he nor Jack O’Brien, the artistic director, knew what direction Hirsch would take.

They were aware of his reputation for productions that he describes as “radical in an aesthetic and political sense,” and were prepared to support him artistically and financially on his journey.

If it was a risky move for the Globe to make--with its more than 50 years of productions for what have been pegged as “conservative” audiences--it is one that has paid off with glowing reviews and enthusiastic response. Hirsch’s deft revision of the text has moved Shakespeare firmly into 1988, with an all-American Rome complete with the honeyed drawl of a Southern politician.

“When I was asked to do ‘Coriolanus,’ I realized that it has to do with the issue of democracy,” Hirsch recalled. “I am naturally interested in the survival of democracy, and America has been one of the most important democratic societies in the history of mankind. Its health and survival influences the whole world.

“Theater is a place where you ask questions, where you confront people with important issues (such as) what kind of a government ought we to have and how should we govern ourselves and choose our leaders, what do we believe in and why.

“After going through ‘Irangate’ and realizing that there was an alternative government running the country, I thought that would be a good idea to investigate,” he said. “There is so much garbage flowing around us these days, so many misrepresentations and lies. The theater is one place where we can surround ourselves with some truth.”

Hirsch, now 58, escaped the Nazis thanks to a peasant woman who took him from his home in the Hungarian countryside to a ghetto in the capital city of Budapest. When he was 13, the age Jewish faith prescribes as the threshold of manhood, Hirsch was permanently separated from his family.

He spent the early years after the war in a German camp for orphans and was later adopted by a Canadian family. Hirsch dates his absorption with theater to age 6, when he did his first puppet play in his parents’ back yard. But he began to use theater as a way of commenting on social issues because of his experience in the Holocaust.

“I don’t remember any time in my life when I was not making theater. It is said that every Hungarian is born with two acts ready in his or her mind, and spends the rest of his or her life writing the third act,” he said with one of his rare laughs.

Hirsch has been writing his third act over the course of nearly 200 productions that range from burlesque to “King Lear.” Between the lines of Hirsch’s text of “Coriolanus,” which he describes as his “essay” more than an update on the original, it is not hard to read warnings about the specter of totalitarianism that made Nazi Germany possible.

Shakespeare’s Coriolanus has, at first glance, much in common with Oliver North, the former Marine lieutenant colonel who has been charged with selling arms to the Iranians and channeling the funds to the Contras in Nicaragua.

Like North, Coriolanus is a military patriot prepared to do whatever he feels is right for his country. North’s fate is still undetermined, but Shakespeare had Coriolanus banished by the Senate for putting himself above the law. He subsequently turns against his country with a vengeance that leads to tragedy.

“All human beings and governments are in love with a totalitarian idea, because freedom means a great deal of work and responsibility,” Hirsch said. “With totalitarianism, everyone says, ‘Great, now we can spend more time at the barbecue.’ It’s dangerous.

“What I’m trying to convey is that no individual in a government has the right to act unilaterally without due process of consultation. Major matters must be discussed and eventually decided by those people who have been elected as representatives of that society. When that does not happen, democracy turns into the very mockery of the ideas for which it stands, and that is very frightening to me.

“It is very important that, when things go off the rails, that society talks about it. I think ‘Coriolanus’ is a marvelous play in which you can see the dangers of that kind of action. But this is not a play that paints all these issues in black and white. It is also about how Coriolanus can be pushed into a job for which he is not really equipped and how power groups of all kinds can use him as a front.”

There has been talk about staging “Coriolanus” elsewhere after it closes here Sept. 4. Nothing definite is in the works, but, if it happens, Hirsch knows it must happen soon because the contemporary nature of the piece threatens to date it. The very mood of the play draws on the current election year by having Coriolanus run a TV campaign for office, shown on video screens at either side of the stage.

Hirsch defends his contemporary choices of atmosphere and words without hesitation.

“The classics are like litmus tests. You dip them into the fluid of the time to see what happens. Things will change five years from now, and what seems so resonant today will not seem resonant then. But the play will still be there. Great plays are not absolute. They change with the times. But they go on because they have something in them that is resonant and meaningful and illuminating for all time.

“The fact of the matter is that theater is the most ephemeral of all the arts. And that’s fine--as long as I keep working.”

Hirsch has never married or had children, but he talks of each individual play with parental pride.

“My productions are my children, and sometimes they behave and sometimes they don’t.”

He has no quarrels with the way “Coriolanus” is behaving.

“I think it’s my best work so far. I became very bold and creative and pursued my vision to the very end. I guess the older you get, the more courageous you get because you have less to lose.

“I firmly believe I know more now than I ever did before,” he said. “I’m looking forward to exploring more and more with greater courage--and joy.”