“The Portland Spy Ring” is a great local-sounding hook for a suspense thriller set in the Pearl District, but these secret agents weren’t stealing recipes for street falafel or Voodoo Donuts.
They were stealing nuclear-submarine secrets from a naval base in Portland, Dorset, on the southern coast of England. After they were arrested in 1961, they became infamous under that label: The Portland Spy Ring.
But before their arrest, they stole something more: the hearts of their nice, normal, unsuspecting neighbors. That’s the truth behind “Pack of Lies,” an edgy Cold War drama by Hugh Whitemore, presented this month by downtown Vancouver’s Magenta Theater. Whitemore’s script expands the real tale of the Portland Spy Ring to explore what happens when bonds of family and friendship are tested by politics and patriotism — or is it just knee-jerk obedience to authority?
Magenta founder Jaynie Roberts, the director of this play, grew up in England amid the Cold War tensions of the 1960s. “I remember my parents and grandparents talking about war and talking about Cuba,” she said. “I was little, but I remember everybody was worried. Everybody seemed tense.”
If You Go
What: "Pack of Lies," by Hugh Whitemore, directed by Jaynie Roberts.
When: 7:30 p.m. March 29-30, April 4-6, April 10-12; 2 p.m. April 6 and 13.
Tickets: $20 in advance, $22 at the door.
Box office: 360-635-4358.
On the web: http://magentatheater.com
Did you know?
While Britain's MI5 intelligence agency was already suspicious, it was the American CIA that tipped it off about the Portland Spy Ring. The shaggy story involves two clerks at the Portland naval base who were stealing nuclear secrets and passing them to an intermediary, who passed them to the Krogers.
Alerted by their informant, British officers swooped in and arrested all five people in January 1961. When police arrived at the Krogers' home, they had to prevent Helen Kroger from firing up the boiler to destroy evidence. The house was full of secret documents, code books, radio transmitters and false passports. The Krogers turned out to be the Cohens, and were sentenced to 20 years in prison -- but then were handed over to Russia in 1969 as part of a spy swap.
As “Pack of Lies” begins, Barbara and Bob Jackson and their daughter, Julie, are living in a London suburb and enjoying a happy friendship with their neighbors, the Krogers. The little society is so close, young Julie Jackson calls Helen Kroger her Auntie Helen.
“It starts off so warm and friendly; these two families are so in love with each other,” said Roberts. “There’s such a feeling of safety and nurturing.”
Until the unthinkable happens. A man from MI5 (British Intelligence, their version of our CIA) shows up with a shattering request. The Jacksons’ government needs their help in surveilling and entrapping Soviet spies embedded in the neighborhood: their pals the Krogers.
How would you have felt? What would you have done? Would you have preferred sticking with the happy fantasy of friendship? In Whitemore’s fictionalized version, deceit and betrayal eventually drive wedges between all three Jacksons, too.
“It makes you wonder, whom do you really trust?” said Roberts. “It’s been a discussion-provoker in rehearsals. What would you do if this happened to you? The answers have not been easy.”
Black, white and color
Roberts’ memories of growing up in the 1960s are strangely black-and-white, she said — as if she’s recalling a time when morality was supposedly just that simple — so that’s how she wanted the stage lighting for “Pack of Lies” to look. Fortunately, she was able to put Magenta’s sophisticated new lighting system to good use, making the Jacksons’ happy home look eerie and nervous.
“It’s all black and white and gray, it looks so weird,” she said. When the characters step out of that reality to confide in the audience, she said, they’re suddenly flooded with color.
To make all those lighting effects happen, Magenta raised donations most of last year and then won a matching grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust to replace its former lighting system with 56 new fixtures that run cooler, cost less to operate and can do a lot more. The $128,000 system was installed last month, after the run of the previous Magenta show.
That show was “Jeeves Takes a Bow,” a light comedy. Fare like that is usually what sells out Magenta’s auditorium, Roberts said, but she wants to keep making time for serious drama, too.
“They’re not always big sellers, but those are the ones people keep talking about,” she said. “They’re important. They’re asking important questions. That’s why we do them.”
