Watch on the Rhine Opens in Topanga

   The Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum continues its summer rep season with Lillian Hellman’s “Watch on the Rhine,” which opens Saturday, August 7, in its outdoor amphitheater in Topanga Canyon.
   In 1936-37, after witnessing the rise of anti-semitism and fascism in Europe, Hellman returned to America and wrote “Watch on the Rhine,” which dramatizes the dangers of the complacency that then prevailed in America.
   Opening on Broadway in 1941, the play won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best American Play. It was made into a film in 1943 with Bette Davis and Paul Lukas, who reprised the role he created on Broadway and received an Academy Award.
   Hellman (1905-1984) is regarded as one of America’s major 20th Century playwrights. Her plays include The Children’s Hour, The Little Foxes, Another Part of the Forest, The Autumn Garden and Toys in the Attic. She also wrote three volumes of autobiography — An Unfinished Woman, for which she received the National Book Award in 1969, Pentimento and Scoundrel Time.
   Toys in the Attic also won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and Hellman was nominated for two Academy Award nominations for screenplays of The Little Foxes and The North Star.
   Though her plays were not overtly political, their recurring themes of social justice provoked controversy, which led to her being summoned by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. She told the committee that she would answer any questions about her own activities, but would not testify about anyone else because “I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.” As a result, she was blacklisted.
   Also blacklisted, the late Will Geer founded the Theatricum Botanicum to give other blacklisted actors a place to work. Subsequently, Geer became one of America’s most beloved actors when he played Grandpa on the popular TV series, “The Waltons.” The Theatricum Botanicum is a recipient of the Margaret Harford Award, the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle’s highest honor-for “Sustained Excellence in Theater.”
   Heidi Helen Davis directs Ted Barton, Jeff Bergquist, Shannon Clair, Abby Craden, Ellen Geer, Dexter Hamlet, Tim Harvey, Chad Jason, Melora Marshall, and Karen Reed in Watch on the Rhine, one of four plays being done this summer.
   For information and tickets, phone (310) 455-3723.