It was nearly 50 years after the Rosenberg trial ended that David Greenglass finally revealed the truth.
In the thick of the Cold War, Greenglass had conspired with his sister, Ethel Rosenberg, and her husband, Julius, along with his own wife and several others, to deliver secret documents related to the atomic bomb to Soviet agents. One fateful night, the two men relayed classified information, while one of the women – Ethel, according to Greenglass’ testimony in court – typed it up.
That intel, we now know, was of little value to the Soviets, and the Rosenbergs are now seen as bit players in the Cold War. Many believe they should be exonerated, as numerous holes have been found in Greenglass’ story. But none of the protestations mattered then: they were scapegoated by the American public, ratted out by Greenglass and sentenced to death by a Jewish prosecutor and judge who were, perhaps, eager to prove that not all Jews were bad guys.
It was a massive case: Jean-Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso, Albert Einstein, Jean Cocteau, Frida Kahlo, Fritz Lang and even the pope all fruitlessly campaigned for their clemency, especially for Ethel, whose death sentence seemed outlandish, compared to the crime of merely typing a document.
Greenglass spent nearly a decade in jail for his part in the conspiracy and decades more living in Queens, N.Y., under an assumed name with his wife. When he was found by a New York Times journalist in the early 2000s, Greenglass half-confessed to perjury, while discussing the night they’d spent typing up the documents.
“I frankly think my wife did the typing, but I don’t remember,” he said. “My wife is more important to me than my sister. Or my mother, or my father, OK? And she was the mother of my children.”
Greenglass’ story of passion and betrayal stands at the centre of Teatron’s revised production of The Story of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, which is debuting in Toronto in November.
“I want people to see it in real life,” says Phyllis Feldman, Teatron’s artistic director. “It was horrific.… This is just a story about humanity and fairness and logic and Jewish values, about how a brother could turn in his own sister.”
She started searching for a play about the Rosenbergs in 2016 and soon found a sort of docudrama written by Judith Binder, Paul Richards and Nina Serrano in the 1970s. The script largely comprised found texts – court transcripts, personal letters, diaries – and when Feldman reached out to Serrano, the octogenarian author pointed her to Jacob Justice, a teacher in Texas who had later adapted the play for his high school students, adding more characters and a narrator.
Feldman turned to Ari Weisberg – Teatron’s founding artistic director, who had left the position in 2015, when he moved to Israel – to see if he wanted to fly back and direct the play.
“I liked the idea, but obviously, as you can see from what ended up, I felt it needed to be adapted and partially rewritten,” Weisberg says. He revised the script further, reframing the story as a flashback by the character who interested him most: Greenglass.
“He’s the one that squealed on all the others,” Weisberg says. “This is the kind of character that really grabbed me. Why would somebody do that?… I don’t think he himself knows 100 per cent why.”
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The fight has still not concluded. Michael Meeropol, the Rosenberg’s eldest son, has been campaigning for his parents’ exoneration for decades. On Dec. 1, 2016, in a symbolic gesture to mirror a clemency request he brought to former U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953, Meeropol delivered a petition with 60,000 signatures to the White House, to attempt to convince then-president Barack Obama to finally exonerate them. It didn’t work.
Meeropol will visit Toronto for the closing performance on Nov. 17, while Serrano will attend the premiere on Nov. 8.
The Story of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg will run from Nov. 8 to 17 at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. For tickets, visit teatrontheatre.com.
