Photo by Stan Barouh

Something Elie Weisel did resulted in Something You Did heading off Theater J’s season. By now, the story is well-known: Theater J’s original season-opener was Deborah Margolin’s Imagining Madoff, a drama about a fictionalized meeting between Bernie Madoff and Elie Weisel. But Weisel was outraged by his portrayal in the work, and when he threatened to sue, Theater J pulled the play from its season. Looking for a less-litigious but still deeply moving political drama, artistic director Ari Roth settled on Willy Holtzman’s Something You Did.

Holtzman reflected upon the circumstances that led to his play being produced at Theater J in an interview.

“It’s unfortunate,” says Holtzman. “It’s hard not to see some form of – censorship is too strong a word, but legal threat restriction of free speech. As a playwright, free speech is our lifeblood, so I was really sad to see that.”

He also says he wasn’t surprised. He told the story of his father, who liberated the death camps as a soldier in World War II, and who was desperate to meet Weisel his whole life. When he finally did, “It wasn’t a pleasant conversation. So I wasn’t surprised to see that things went the way they did [with Imagining Madoff],” he says. “My dad was looking for some sort of absolution. Maybe we ask too much of people.”

Holtzman’s play has much in common with Margolin’s, though. They both contain characters based on real people in imagined scenarios. Holtzman loosely based the concept of Something You Did around the story of Kathy Boudin, a Weather Underground member who served 20 years for the deaths of two policemen and a security guard during a demonstration that went wrong.

During the first rehearsal, Roth addressed his cast and crew with some remarks on Madoff vs. Something You Did.

"More meaningful than its plot points, however, Something You Did embodies the soulfulness of its protagonist and her plight, her reckoning – in a way that mirrors and then enhances the same kind of soul-searching that went on for the recalcitrant Madoff and the traumatized Weisel (who’s now been written into theatrical oblivion)," said Roth.

“I would never write about a living person, even someone who is a public figure, without first soliciting the reaction of that person, far in advance,” says Holtzman. “I was glad to have the input of Kathy and Bernadine [Dohrn], who had a lot to share. I don’t want to make a judgement on Deb Margolin, but having been in similar positions, I wouldn’t go ahead without some assurance. I think that there was a problem built into that that was waiting to happen.” Grace Overbeke, the marketing director of Theater J, says Margolin did in fact solicit Weisel's input about her play.

Getting input from the real people your characters are based upon is not the same as acknowledging their veto.

“As far as Madoff goes, he’s a convicted felon who destroyed fortunes and lives,” says Holtzman. “Whatever any writer wants to say about him is fine. Elie Weisel occupies a different position in history, though. There are different standards that apply.”

Far from licking its wounds, Theater J has come out with guns blazing with Something You Did, which addresses hypocrisies on the left and right.

“There’s been no attempt to somehow dampen this or mute it,” says Holtzman. “If anything, its been going the opposite way, [Theater J will] take the subject matter of the play and heighten it.”