John Halder is your standard-issue professor of literature. He's a loving husband and father, a dutiful son to his elderly mother and a reassuring presence for his best friend, Maurice. And in 1933 Germany, a Jewish psychiatrist such as Maurice needs all the friends he can find. Halder tells Maurice that the Nazis only espouse anti-Semitism as a way to play to the baser elements of the crowd. But then Halder becomes a Nazi — it's a good career move for a loyal German man at the time — and tells Maurice he can be a positive force within the party, pushing the Nazis toward a more humane, liberal platform. But can he really? If he can't, the stakes aren't quite as high for Halder as they are for Maurice, after all. In C.P. Taylor's Good, the seduction of evil is as inevitable as an undertow — too late you realize how far away from safety you've been pulled. St. Louis Actors' Studio presents Good at 8 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday (October 5 through 21) at the Gaslight Theatre (358 North Boyle Avenue; 314-458-2978 or www.stlas.org). Tickets are $25 to $30.
Thursdays-Sundays. Starts: Oct. 5. Continues through Oct. 21, 2012
