Incident at Vichy was published by Viking Press in 1965 and premiered at the ANTA Washington Square Theatre on December 3, 1964, directed by Harold Clurman. The play is set in a detention center in Vichy France in 1942, where a group of men have been stopped in the street and are waiting to be examined — ostensibly for identity documents, actually to determine which of them are Jewish.
The detained men include a prince (Von Berg, an Austrian aristocrat), a painter, an actor, a psychiatrist, a businessman, a waiter, a young boy, and others. As they wait, they debate: is this really about Jews? Will they really be sent to concentration camps? Surely this civilized country wouldn’t — surely there must be an explanation. The play dramatizes the process by which rational people deny the evidence of persecution until it is too late to resist.
Miller’s central dramatic confrontation is between Leduc, a Jewish psychiatrist who understands exactly what is happening, and Von Berg, the Austrian prince who is not Jewish and will therefore be released. Leduc argues that Von Berg’s innocence is itself complicity: by accepting his freedom — by walking out the door while others are sent to their deaths — Von Berg becomes part of the machinery of extermination. The play’s climax turns on Von Berg’s response to this argument: he gives Leduc his pass, sacrificing his own freedom so that a Jewish man can escape.
Collecting Incident at Vichy
First edition (Viking Press, New York, 1965): Hardcover with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $50–$150
- Very good: $20–$50