CONSCIENCE


Decades before lies, chaos, fear, personal attacks, intimidation, and bullying reigned supreme in Washington DC, a senator named Joseph McCarthy set it all in motion by waging war against suspected communists and Senator Margaret Chase Smith in Conscience, Joe DiPietro’s fascinating look back at how much times haven’t changed since 1950.

Peace may have been declared just four years earlier, but the Cold War against communism was only just getting started, and fanning the flames of paranoia was the opportunistic freshman senator from Wisconsin.

Not that his Maine counterpart Margaret (Sharon Gardner), the first woman ever to be elected to both House and Senate, was any less anti-communist than Joe (Jon Root).

The difference was that only one of the two had what are commonly called principles, which is why Margaret is outraged when Joe claims without an iota of proof to have in his possession the names of 205 members of the Communist Party currently working and shaping policy in the State Department.

Unlike Margaret, however, her fellow senators take Joe’s list far more seriously, and in so doing further propel a witch hunt for supposed communists and “fellow travelers” that lasted from 1947 to 1954.

Joe DiPietro may not be the first playwright to tackle the so-called Red Scare. (Arthur Miller did that most famously in 1953 in his allegorical The Crucible and Eric Bentley took a docudrama approach in 1972’s Are You Now or Have You Ever Been.)

But Conscience is the first to put Margaret Chase Smith and Joseph McCarthy front and center, and for that we have Donald J. Trump’s first term in office to thank.

Indeed, it’s hard to watch Conscience without being reminded of the parallels between 1950, 2000 (the year Conscience debuted), and 2026, not with a protagonist who uses daily, attention-grabbing headlines to his advantage, not with a press who let McCarthy (in Margaret’s words) “get away with the vilest grandstanding I’ve ever seen,” and not with Joe’s own downright lies about his reputed past “achievements.”

And yes, DiPietro’s putting words in Margaret’s mouth like “Never have I ever met anyone who can make things up on the spot with such dizzying conviction. He says the first thing that pops into his mind no matter how absurd, no matter how insane, but nobody will speak up against him in the Senate because they’re scared” may be a little too on the nose.

But that doesn’t stop Conscience from being as powerful as it is entertaining as it is informative, and under caryn desai’s astute direction, Gardner (a vivacious raven-haired stunner in real life) so vanishes into Margaret’s starchy Maine skin (with Mainer vowels to match) that her chameleon-like transformation is downright stunning.

Dylan C. Wittrock and Hollis Dohr are both absolutely terrific in supporting roles, he as Margaret’s rumored-to-be-gay administrative assistant, she as Joe’s adoring legislative assistant, both characters as indispensable to their bosses as the actors portraying them are to Conscience’s Los Angeles Premiere.

Still, if Conscience can be said to “belong” to any one of its cast members, it belongs to Root, whose tour-de-force (but never overplayed) turn as Joe manages somehow to make the man as perversely charming as he is utterly reprehensible, and the sparks that Root and Gardner ignite have the snap, crackle, and pop of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn at their opposites-attract/opposites-repel best.

Brittany Bodley and Mason Irwin’s spare but attractive set facilitates quick scene changes from locale to locale, Kim DeShazo’s costumes evoke the early 1950s as do Patty Briles’ myriad props, and though I wish that Gardner were sporting a more believable gray wig than the one plopped atop her head, all of the above are expertly lit by Donny Jackson, with Hunter Moody’s sound design enhancing the DiPietro’s words every step of the way.

Conscience is produced by desai. Darlene Miyakawa is production stage manager. Reigh Levinstein is assistant stage manager and intimacy choreographer. Casting is by Michael Donovan, CSA and Richie Ferris, CSA. Lucy Pollak is publicist.

It may have taken the 2016 presidential election and its aftermath for Joe DiPietro to put fingertips to keyboard and write Conscience, but thank goodness he did. Head on down to  see International City Theatre’s fabulous summer entry and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

International City Theatre, Long Beach Performing Arts Center, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach. Through September 13. Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30. Sundays at 2:00.
www.InternationalCityTheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
August 28, 2026
Photos: Jordan Gohara

Visit www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php for a review roundup of what’s now playing in theaters around Los Angeles.

 

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