This review was written by contributor Chris Klimek

The Director: The Third Act of Elia Kazan, now in its world premiere run at Round House Theatre in Silver Spring, takes a few more liberties with its subject than did Orson's Shadow, another recent Round House production about titans of the stage and screen. The latter play imagined what Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier might have talked about during their real-life collaboration on Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros, and in its dramatization of the pair's shared insecurities, it succeeded in making both artists seem at once more fallible and more gifted.

Sadly, The Director does not accomplish the same for Kazan. Written and directed by Leslie A. Kobylinski and performed by Rich Foucheux, it's basically a fictionalized, stream-of-consciousness autobiography compressed into 70 minutes. It's another fine showcase for Foucheux's prodigious talent, but it neither broadens nor diminishes our sense of Kazan's. While touching on Kazan's Olympian achievements —founding of the Actor's Studio, putting the Stanislavsky Method of acting into the movies — Kobylinski's script focuses on the episode that forever tarred Kazan's legacy, his 1952 testimony to the House Committee on Un-American Activies, where he named colleagues who were or had been Communist Party members during Kazan's own brief membership. Kazan's fateful name-naming has remained as indelible a part of his reputation as A Streetcar Named Desire; when he got an honorary Oscar almost half a century after his testimony, a big chunk of the audience refused to applaud.

Its entire set is comprised of a chair with a spotlight overhead, as though Kazan is being interrogated. His repeated assurances he is "not asking for your forgiveness" convince us of just the opposite. As the lights go down at the end, Foucheux open his arms to the sky, as if pleading for mercy from the divine. It's a powerful moment, because Foucheux is an expressive actor. But it seems to have about as much do with Elia Kazan as it does with the Farrelly Brothers.

How do we know? Kazan published a remarkable 800-plus page autobiography in 1988, wherein he acknowledged his contrarian nature and made it clear he had, deservedly or not, made his peace with it. He agonized over his choice to name names, and indeed continued to wonder whether he'd done right, but it seems unlikely he was ever the spineless bag of neuroses we get here. Kazan also claimed in the book a Wilt Chamberlain-like list of sexual conquests. To see Foucheux play that cockiness wold have been great fun, but instead he presents the man who won a Tony for directing Death of a Salesmanto be as tormented as Willy Loman himself.

This comes despite the fact that Kazan had it all and, and least some of the time, knew it: creative and commercial success, three long marriages, friendships with other geniuses (Foucheux's impression of Kazan imitating Tennesee Williams is one of the show's way-too-few laughs, but it's a good one.) The overwhelming piety of this show feels at odds with everything we know about its subject. Love him or hate him, Elia Kazan was an uncannily lucid and self-aware man. By most accounts, not least his own, The Director simply wasn't half as sad or confused as The Director. While it's an impressive acting exercise, it turns out to be a fairly meaningless one.

The Director runs through May 13. Tickets are available online.