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Written
by
Bertolt
Brecht
English
translation by
Ralph Manheim
Director
David Farr
Designer
Ti Clarke
Music
Keith Clouston
Created with
and starring
Lucian
Msamati as
Arturo Ui
Cast
includes
Roma
Ariyon Bakare
Giri
Christopher
Obi
Dogsborough
Joseph Mydell
Dullfeet
Jude Akuwuduke
Givola
Nyasha Hatendi
Mrs
Dullfeet
Susan Salmon
Clark
Emmanuel
Ighodaro
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Lyric Theartre
Hammersmith
14 Feb - 15 March 2008 |
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Brecht's
bitter satire on Hitler's
rise to power is very specific
in its references and analogies,
transposing what happened
in Berlin and Austria to a
protection racket in the vegetable
trade in Chicago and neighbouring
Cicero. We have the old henchman
Roma (Rohm) falling from favour
and the night of the long
knives; we have the aged and
(in the public-s eyes) incorruptible
Dogsborough (Hindenburg);
we have the warehouse (Reichstag)
fire deliberately caused and
blamed on outside agitators
followed by a show trial featuring
evidence plainly obtained
through torture; we have the
rise of the smooth tongued
Givola (Goebbels) and rivalry
between him and Giri (Goering);
we have Dullfeet (Dollfuss)
finding no way out of the
lure as his Cicero (Austria)
is drawn into the sordid racket.Ý
And we have Arturo Ui (Adolf
Hitler), on his uppers at
the beginning of the play
but determined somehow to
get to the top and getting
there, despite a lack of talent
or ideas, essentially through
wanting it most and being
utterly ruthless. Indeed,
while the play shows that
there is many a slip, it does
not indicate positive ways
(absent considerable changes
in human nature) in which
the rise of talentless self-promoters
such as Ui is really resistible.
The rest of us are too lazy,
too fearful and too venal.
Faced with this very specific
parable, written in the waves
of Brecht-s first intoxication
with American culture after
arriving there in 1941, it
seems an unfair criticism
of David Farr's conception
of the play, worked on with
the impressive Zimbabwean
actor Lucian Msamati, to say
that it should have been more
African. It would be possible,
of course, to take the same
idea and write a specifically
Liberian or Congolese or Zimbabwean
version; but that would be
a different play. As it was,
Msamati and the cast of British
or British-based black actors
played it fairly straight,
only making Ui a son of the
"desert" (in Chicago?)
and dropping some African
names at the end in the list
of cities on Ui's hit list.
And why not?Ý We would not
these days baulk at, say,
an all-black Shakespeare history
play, so why not an all-black
Arturo Ui set in 30s Chicago?
Taken in those terms, this
was overall a competent rather
than brilliant performance,
although the playwright must
take some of the blame for
some of the less inspired
moments. There are longueurs,
as Brecht can never resist
preaching, and the early scenes
with the difficulties of the
Chicago cauliflower league
are heavy going. Msamati is
extremely good, wheedling,
raging, spitting, sweating,
charming, intimidating, insinuating
and by the end, barking mad.
He is powerful and energetic
and makes you feel that, away
from the public gaze, he would
enjoy beating you up. There
are very good things along
the way.Ý Roma and the other
loyal heavies waiting for
Ui to turn up on what turns
out to be their St Valentine's
Day massacre achieves something
touching as well as violent
and squalid. The great scene
where Ui hires an actor to
teach him how to make public
speeches is very well done.
Joseph Mydell threatens, rightly,
to steal to the scene as the
very Actor-ish actor, reciting
Shakespeare while tossing
his lengthy scarf around his
neck, but Ui, initially tongue-tied
and text-bound, finds his
voice and his power to hold
and inflame a crowd in the
course of a single declamation.
It is chilling, and the actor,
work done, slips away. The
light-voiced snake in the
grass of Givola was also well
handled. Overall, a sense
of claustrophobia and ordinary
people being sucked into a
new world of violence and
fear was powerfully induced.
There were lots of young people
in the audience, laughing
at the right and some of the
less appropriate moments.
One hopes this very worthwhile
production might also instil
reflexes that would lead to
some resistance to the rise
of psychotic clowns in their
lives.
James Flynn |
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