'Top Secret': Pentagon Papers, for Your Ears Only

Loewenberg says that LATW's recent touring shows have emphasized docudramas "with real issues you can discuss." The "Top Secret" tour is mainly barnstorming to university campuses, with lectures and panel discussions organized around the performances; this Thursday, Bradlee -- played by John Heard in the production -- will join Ellsberg on a panel before the show.

The show has been revised for this tour, with Cowan taking director John Rubinstein's advice and augmenting the role of Post Publisher Katharine Graham. It was ultimately up to Graham whether to go with the story, so Cowan has turned her into the narrator, inserting speeches he wrote last summer. Loewenberg says: "She wasn't really a major character in the play, except for her momentous decisions. Now, she is really the storyteller of the play."

Although Cowan and Aarons based the script on research and interviews, poetic license inevitably has been invoked. Cowan says he's made reporter George Wilson "the hero of the piece," for instance, even though he says Wilson wasn't actually at Bradlee's house. The court proceedings are condensed into a single event, with a prosecution lawyer and a judge both given fictitious names.

A bit of invention, Cowan says, goes with the theatrical territory. But the journalism professor is happy to compare "Top Secret" with the kind of history-based dramas he admires. He says, "My play is much more accurate than 'Copenhagen' or 'Frost/Nixon.' "

And why revive "Top Secret" now? Cowan and Loewenberg believe the Pentagon Papers incident highlights the line between the public's right to know and the government's need -- not always illegitimate, Cowan notes -- to keep certain things secret.

That tension escalates during wartime, and Loewenberg points out it's only grown more complex in the era of terrorism. Cowan cites recent Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting about such dubious government activities as "black site" prisons and secret domestic eavesdropping as proof that the issue remains fresh.

"It's always relevant," he says, "because there are always things being told that people don't want being told."