'It Can't Happen Here' Can Actually Happen Here
In Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s cavernous rehearsal space, in the midst of several dozen actors and tech people, two marching drummers are trying to work out their timing. This is Berkeley, where marching to a different beat is part of the city’s historical rhapsody, but these extras are supposed to be leading an invisible procession celebrating the ascent of a major political candidate, the next president of the United States, in fact—an unconventional renegade with little respect for the politesse of traditional campaigning, or the democratic system.
No, not that guy. For this most unconventional of election years, the venerable rep company is presenting an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’s dystopian novel, . Published in 1935, the book was written and revised in and who had watched with alarm the rise of a U.S. senator from Louisiana, Huey P. Long. The former governor known as the Kingfish was an ardent populist, a ruthless demagogue and aspiring presidential candidate who was prepared to outflank FDR on the left—until he was assassinated shortly before the book’s publication. Fortunately for Lewis, there were plenty of fascists on the rise in Europe, and it wasn’t too hard for readers to squint and imagine a little Hitler in the White House.
