Jonathan Watkins portrays Christopher Trumbo, who conducts the audience through the events, both ordinary and tragic, of his father's career. The script does not give Christopher much character - he is a pleasant young man who loves and admires his father - but Watkins does what he can with it.
After serving their prison terms, Trumbo and the other writers found themselves blacklisted.
For Trumbo, with a wife and three children to support, that meant years of quickie scripts for small money under assumed names. It also meant receiving hate mail and seeing his children taunted and ostracized by their schoolmates.
Finally in 1960, two Hollywood giants insisted on hiring Trumbo under his own name: director Otto Preminger and actor Kirk Douglas.
Trumbo is performed in a bleak, haunting set designed by Milagros Ponce de Leon. Projected on the background is a mosaic of images dominated by a prison mug shot.
Despite its serious intent, the play includes a surprising amount of Trumbo's playful humor. When his son was a student at Columbia College, Trumbo sent him two books, one on poker, the other on sex.
These were accompanied by a letter that became famous around the campus - a long and hilarious dissertation on the sex urge in adolescent boys. The audience gets to hear it in full.
Rep Stage is presenting Trumbo through Sept. 28 in the Studio Theatre, Horowitz Center, Howard Community College, 10901 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 2:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. Saturdays and 2:30 p.m. Sundays. There will be post-show discussions tomorrow night and Sept. 12, and a pre-show lecture at 1 p.m. this Saturday. Reservations: 410-772-4900, or www.repstage.org
