“Finks”

Joe Gilford

For the first eleven years of his life, Joe Gilford grew up in a household where the 1950s blacklist against Hollywood writers, directors, and actors was very much part of his every day life, given his parents were both on it along with many of their closest friends.  Young Joe was even named for an actor, Joseph Edward Bromberg, whose career and life were ruined in 1951by the now infamous House Committee on Un-American Activities. 

With that kind of upbringing, no wonder the boy who grew up to be a playwright (Danny’s Brain, The Radio Days) chose to pen a script that combines real and fictionalized characters and actual Committee testimonies to create a story about how this decade-plus of continuous hearings affected in such horrible ways people whose only crime was generally being socially conscious and active for human rights causes.  After opening Off-Broadway in 2013 to critical acclaim, FINKSreceives its West Coast premiere under the same direction as its New York debut, with TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s own Giovanna Sardelli now artistically guiding for her home company a highly engaging, visually electric, and powerfully acted FINKS.

Rating: 5 E

FINKS runs through July 1, 2018 at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro Street, Mountain View.  Tickets are available online at http://www.theatreworks.org/box-office/ or by calling 650-463-1960, Monday – Friday 11 a.m. – 6 p.m. and Saturday – Sunday, Noon – 6 p.m.