Many will be surprised to learn that Ted Cruz and Barack Obama actually have something in common: a love of theater. While George W. Bush never went near a Broadway theater in his eight years in office, the Obamas have been relatively steady theatergoers, most recently at “Hamilton.” If Senator Cruz makes it to the White House, he may indulge in his love of theater. But it had better not be at a show starring veteran stage actor Mandy Patinkin.Patinkin, whose liberal views are well known, recently expressed his deep displeasure that Cruz on the campaign trail was quoting lines from what the senator has described as his favorite movie, “The Princess Bride,” which co-starred Patinkin as Inigo Montoya. To show how tough he is, the Senator often chooses this classic line from the 1987 Rob Reiner flick: “Allo, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” Cruz’s supporters have also photo-shopped Cruz’s face over stills of Patinkin as Montoya on the Internet, further raising the actor’s ire. He asked the New York Times in a recent interview, “How can I stop this?” Patinkin added that if Senator Cruz persisted then he should also include Montoya’s line, “I have been in the revenge business so long, now that it’s over, I don’t know what to do with the rest of my life.”Cruz was so enamored of theater that he once thought of going to Hollywood to pursue a career in acting. His alarmed parents squashed that ambition, but he had the chance to trod the boards when Harvard Law School’s drama society put on a production of Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” on the occasion of the 300th Anniversary of the Salem witch trials. Cruz played the power hungry and self-pitying Reverend Samuel Parris, who invites the enmity of John Proctor, who is the ethical hero of Miller’s 1953 drama.Cruz’s critics may observe that he was typecast as Parris, who cynically cuts his conscience to maintain his power within the community. But Cruz told the Boston Globe, in a seeming moment of self-pity, that it was he who was being misjudged. “It’s a tremendous play,” he said. “And it is obviously against jumping to conclusions and being unfairly and harshly judgmental of others.”An amusing fillip to the story of Cruz’s foray into acting in “The Crucible” is that he claims was nursing a hangover so intense during one performance that he walked off the stage in mid-scene leaving his fellow actors to improvise without him. He did not return.Meanwhile, “The Crucible” will be revived on Broadway this spring to coincide with the centennial of Miller’s birth. Produced by Scott Rudin, the new production is directed by Ivo van Hove (“A View from the Bridge”) and stars, among others, Ben Whishaw as Proctor and Saoirse Ronan (the film “Brooklyn”). Featured as Parrish will be Jason Butler Harner and, as Judge Danforth, Ciaran Hinds. In this allegory about McCarthyism — the anti-Communist red baiting that was then rampant in the 1950s — it is Danforth who says to the reverend, “Mr. Parris, you are a brainless man!”
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