‘The Substance of Fire,’ theater review

Publish or perish assumes unexpected meaning in The Substance of Fire, an intriguing but frustrating drama. Jon Robin Baitz’s 1989 play in revival at Second Stage revolves around the imperious Isaac Geldhart (an impressive John Noble, of Fringe), head of a family-owned, financially shaky publishing house that specializes in scholarly tomes. Obsessed with Hitler, Holocaust survivor Isaac is hell-bent on putting out a multivolume series on Nazi medical atrocities — worthy and important, yes; sellable, no. His practical son Aaron (Carter Hudson), an MBA, lobbies to ditch that plan and instead put out a sexually frank contemporary novel to pull the company out of the red.