'God's Country' offers haunting portrayal of white supremacist

“God’s Country” is not an easy play to watch: Dominique Salerno ’10’s senior thesis production of the Steven Dietz docu-drama is a thought-provoking portrait of one of the darkest corners of American society. Composed largely of quotations from participants and court transcripts, Dietz’ play is a harrowing examination of The Order, a white supremacist group that developed in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s and was responsible for the 1984 murder of Alan Berg, host of a radio talk-show in Denver. The play itself is a free-flowing amalgamation of various scenes from the rise and fall of The Order, centering particularly on the life and death of the skinhead Robert Jay Matthews (PJ Miller ’10).

Unfortunately, much of the play is devoted to seemingly peripheral courtroom scenes. Listening to the testimony of Denver Parmenter (Will Schleier ’13), the lead witness for the prosecution, we learn about the founding of The Order, its white supremacist doctrine and various details of its operations. While all this is interesting, it feels a bit too clinical and didactic to fully convey to the audience the emotional impact of what is going on.

Regrettably, the play does not approach its full emotional power until after the second act has started, when we begin to spend less time in court and more time in the lives of the characters. This leads to the production’s most chillingly effective scenes. Miller storms thunderously back and forth between the stage and the house while espousing the tenets of his supremacist philosophies, banging the hammer he is using to construct a wooden cross on the back wall of the theater to accentuate each point.

Later, Matthews and his mistress Zillah Craig (Bethy Atkins ’11) toss a football around with their elementary school-aged son (Alex Essig) as they quiz him on the lifestyle in which he has been immersed, with questions ranging from practical concerns over how to maintain The Order's secrecy to explanations of the inherent superiority of the Aryan race. The boy answers each one flawlessly. More than anything asked during a courtroom cross-examination, these scenes resonate.

The acting is solid throughout, and there are several outstanding performances. Miller, performing in the production for his senior thesis, effectively captures the duality of his character and avoids slipping into caricature. There is never any question that he is a violent and malicious racist, but he is also a father patting his son affectionately on the shoulder as they walk outside. Atkins plays the role of his mistress with a jarring calm and naivete that forces the spectator to ponder her culpability in the family’s actions.

Max Rosmarin ’11, meanwhile, is wonderfully effective at portraying Berg on the job before his death. Sitting onstage at a small desk, he genuinely sounds like a radio host and successfully humanizes his character. He is not an abstract figure symbolizing of the atrocities committed by The Order — he is a real person, a character whom the audience is free to admire, loathe or be annoyed at. This makes his murder all the more wrenching.

The structure of “God’s Country” means that nearly every member of the cast plays multiple roles. The play is innovative in its approach to portraying a multitude of people and transitioning between radically different settings and styles. Nevertheless, there are times when the constant shifting of roles becomes a bit too distracting, occasionally interfering with my connection to some of the characters. In a play that depends upon following the mindset of each character, more continuity would have helped.

In her director’s notes, Salerno commented, “Over the course of my years of research I have memorized the faces of The Order.” Given the complex structure of the play, it is unlikely that the audience will leave with such familiarity with each person involved or the intricacies of the horrifying fact pattern. Much more importantly, however, they will take away an emotional appreciation from what they have seen and heard. This is a haunting show, where the dramatic tension hinges not on uncertainty about what’s going to happen but on examining the beliefs and characters of individuals who repeatedly found ways to defend the indefensible. Salerno’s nuanced production does an excellent job of bringing this to life.