Ruth Leon’s New York Pocket Theatre Review
Ruth Leon recommendsCorruption – Lincoln Center Theater
Almost a documentary in play form, J.T. Rogers gives us a straightforward retelling of the phone hacking scandal in the News of the World, and lays bare the corruption at the heart of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.
The theatre was almost full when I saw Corruption which is interesting because this is an intrinsically British story and, while I, as a Brit, recognised all the people involved – the MPs, the politicians, the private detectives, the police, and especially Rebekah Brooks, prime mover and darling of Rupert Murdoch – I wondered how this was resonating for an American audience who had never heard of any of them.
Brooks was a prominent figure in the scandal, having been the editor of the News of the World from 2000 to 2003 when the stories which involved illegal phone hacking were published by the newspaper. Murdoch remained loyal to her, even when exposure of the behaviour of her reporters shut down her paper and she herself was arrested and tried in a criminal court for several charges of conspiracy for which she was eventually acquitted. He continues to employ her to this day as CEO of his News Corp.
British actor Toby Stephens leads the cast as Tom Watson, the MP determined to expose the underbelly of the Murdoch empire which permeated to the top of UK society, the cream of whom attended Brooks wedding to the racehorse trainer, Charlie Brooks, which opens the play.
The director has opted for a story-telling style that is busy – the stage is surrounded by projections, and moving furniture seems to be the prime activity of the cast who, apart from Toby Stephens, double and triple roles as the scandal unfolds.
For those of us who know the story there is little actual drama here because we know what happened, but the audience at Lincoln Center seemed absorbed by the vision of the movers and shakers in Britain being as noxious as their American counterparts.
As a point of interest to readers of this blog, Ruth Leon might have mentioned that the central part of Rebekah Brooks is played by Saffron Burrows, who was ‘New York Symphony’ principal cellist Cynthia Taylor in the streaming series “Mozart in the Jungle.”