(seen at the afternoon performance on 10th April 2024)
“Hitler, there was a painter. He could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon! Two coats!”
As Mel Brooks wrote in “The Producers.”
Just as original is Marius Von Mayenburg’s idea here, “what if your late father had one of Hitler’s original pre-political career paintings in his attic?”
How would the family react? Brother and sister welcoming a potential windfall, their spouses less certain... and the brother’s wife is Jewish...
Over an hour and a half, Von Mayenburg examines the idea from several angles in a mixture of real and surreal sequences.
Director Patrick Marber and translator Maja Zade do well to adapt this piece to resonate with British audiences less used to the theatrical sprawl of modern German theatre.
It is admittedly peculiar to begin with the cast clearing the stage of a jumble of household goods. Still, odd as the pre-show and looping opening scenes are, what follows at least holds the interest if sometimes in a “I can’t believe they said / did / thought that” way.
On a patch of earth with derelict house behind (Anna Fleischele on usual form) we meet the two couples, an eccentric art dealer and an even stranger buyer.
Nicola (Dorothea Myer-Bennett) and Phillip (John Heffernan) are the couple doing most of the work on Nicola’s father’s home. She is contrary and coiled, he is relaxed and disposed of in unorthodox fashion. Believable as a contrasting pair, even stronger when given their key moments.
Nicola’s brother Fabian (Gunnar Cauthery) and Jewish wife Judith (Jenna Augen) are the driving forces. His simple interest in easy money contrasts with her moral qualms and ultimate decisions. Both change gears rapidly as the play flows, making them compellingly unpredictable.
Jane Horrocks surprisingly reins in her usual eccentric edge, giving Evamaria a gravity beneath the artistic temperament. This is a Nazi sympathiser whom Horrocks refuses to hide with clowning.
More openly, Angus Wright uses his trademark unique stage appearance to imbue Kahl with dangerous flamboyance to match his own pro-Fascist views. The chill of his determination and the fallout it creates are a strength of the penultimate scene.
Despite the cast, the whole adds up in the end to something of a missed opportunity.
If written in the traditional British / American fashion, we would either have ended up with black comedy or something more historically / psychologically inquisitive. This manages to fall midway between the two.
A strong production keeps it interesting, but the quirks of its construction never quite do sufficient justice to such an original and intriguing idea, even if the warning of what is always present – strongly relevant at the moment - is so clear.
3 stars.