Once inside the performance space we had to walk on stage
to buy programmes and drinks, mingling with the other actors in a theatre
re-cast as a Chicago dance hall, Mack the Knife played in the background as the
Threepenny Opera mixed with The Cotton Club and the audience, seated all around
the stage were given instructions by the players. I won’t give anything away
but this was the first play I’ve watched were members of the audience were put
on trial, forced to give support to a criminal political class and – those who
didn’t… well…
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| Lucy Eaton and Lenny Henry |
Whatever comes around… but there’s no inevitability about
demagogues and dictators and yet, given their continued rule in parts of the
world and the recent successes of a man seemingly intent on working substantial
sections of the absolutists’ rule book, Bertolt Brecht’s play is as relevant as
ever, especially in a new adaptation by multi-award winning Bruce Norris (Pulitzer,
Olivier and Tony Awards!) which can’t
help but pull in contemporary references.
So many demagogues start out as comedy and accelerate to
tragedy. Mussolini modelled his body language on the Italian silent film star,
Bartolemeo Pagano the star of the Maciste strongman films most of which were
light-hearted affairs and yet his primitive presence suited the needs of a
“strongman leader” who need to communicate a simple message. So in Brecht’s
play does Uri seek help from an actor in presenting himself: the walk, the
posture, the use of the arms and hands… a chest-raised rigid fold of the arms
after an extension of the left arm at approximately an angle of 70 degrees.
Tom Edden is hilarious as the drink-sodden actor hired to
correct Arturo’s wayward body language and Lenny Henry is surprisingly eloquent
in this regard, a lithe touch for a big man progressing from a relaxed jazz-age
hooligan to power politician of firm stance: strong and stable…
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| Tom Edden's actor schools Ui |
Dictators: so bloody obvious, so crass… yet always
underestimated in the rise. They are “resistible” and yet how often do they
succeed?
This production reminded me of the Donmar verve of Cabaret (from 1994…) and the almost
complete dissolve of the fourth wall by actors zipping around us, in the stalls
and up in the gods, changing characters and singing snatches of songs new and
old for the first bars of Human sung
by Gloria Obianyo, to some Johnny Cash from Philip Cumbus: a cast of very fine
voices accompanied by the multi-talented Ms Eaton on impeccable piano (she also
sings, natch).
The play is of course all about groceries. Even in a
Chicago of many distractions, a man’s gotta eat and who ever controls the
supply of vegetables has his hand on the food-chain the underpins everything
else.
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| Gloria Obianyo on song |
Where there’s root vegetables there’s politics and the leaders
of the trade association debate ways of neutering the influence of mayor Dogsborough
(the excellent Michael Pennington) by appealing to his vanity in order to secure
the loan they need for expansion in the docks.
Dogsborough is Weimar President Hindenburg who actually
was gifted a country estate in exchange for favours in the East Aid Scandal.
The programme notes include a list of overt references to the German political
events of the thirties and it makes for painful reading.
Into this picture comes the gangster Ui (Henry) and his
right hand man Ernesto Roma (Giles Terera) who keeps him, just about, on a
straight course and out of any trouble he can’t handle. Ui’s squeeze is
Dockdoris and he has a couple of psychotic lieutenants, the florist Guiseppe Givola
(Guy Rhys) who’s not exactly smelling of roses and Emanuele Giri (Lucy Ellinson)
who has the charming habit of wearing the hat of every man she kills.
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| Arturo out of control |
The trade association tries to use Ui’s physical threat
to control the situation but he and his troop are too smart for them at every
turn, accepting every opportunity to move themselves onwards at whatever human
cost: they are just more aggressive.
The resistance is led by attorney O’Casey (super turn
from an adenoidal Justine Mitchell who’d I’d last seen in the Donmar’s superlative
Kind Lear) but even the law is
subverted through intimidation and thuggery and I’m afraid that an audience
member was found guilty of burning down the Reichstag – sorry a warehouse… whilst
another was killed in a clear implication of his guilt: you’d have hoped for
better from a London audience but there you go… trust no one.
It was a performance of pure theatrical verve which the
cast clearly enjoyed as much as the slightly startled audience. Props to
director Simon Evans for the audacious staging and to his designer Peter
McKintosh for one of the most pure-enjoyable and thought-provoking shows at
this venue for some time.
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| Lucy Ellinson looks out on the audience |
Lenny Henry showed that he has completed his transition to
the stage and after so much Shakespeare is ready to tackle anything; you completely
forget that he’s Lenny apart from one moment of near corpsing when the audience
member was made up bruised and battered!
The rest of the cast were uniformly excellent with Lucy
Ellinson almost Joker-esque in her joyful psychotics and Guy Rhys, the fearsome
florist, particularly good alongside Lucy Eaton’s snarky Doris.
Before the second half began we were joined again by Doris/Lucy
again who asked us if we thought she’d survive the play: “don’t shoot the piano
player” if offered… but there are no guarantees in this brutal World in which
one man’s word is only as good as his ability to back it up with force…
The Resistible Rise
of Arturo Ui plays for another month – until 17th June. Tickets
are available on the Donmar site but are very limited. Catch it if you can, a
play for today and all those tomorrows we – collectively – let slide…
#Resist.
Ithankyou rating: *****
