SOME plays have a habit of surfacing when the political climate dictates that we need a subtle, or not-so-subtle, reminder of the parlous times in which we find ourselves and the precipice which lies only a few steps ahead of us.
Richard III’s ruthless power-grabbing, or The Government Inspector’s lessons in the inevitable descent into corruption, have timeless lessons to teach and Brecht’s Arturo Ui, perhaps more firmly-rooted in precise history than most, has plenty to tell us.
Hitler’s rise to power is almost as well-documented as the terrible reign which followed it. And it’s ascending the throne rather than ruling from it which Sean Linden’s production sets out here.
Chicago’s dockside vegetable trade stands in for the economic turmoil of Germany but the characters, quite deliberately, are the same and the casual brutality on display puts politicians and gangsters on an equal footing.
Mark Gatiss opens his RSC account with a performance he may well never surpass. Starting face down in his own impoverishment his is truly a rise through confidence, conviction and eventual delusion with every stage detailed and defined.
Tentative lessons in projection and presentation become a gradual mastering of how to hold a dominant pose and, as the inner self-belief grows so does the outer, through goose-stepping, heel-clicking, uniform regalia and, at the very end, the first tentative move to a full Nazi salute.
It’s a rise which is all the more chilling for being believable and it’s a journey made with calmness, doubt, belligerence and not a little humour. In occasional nods to the times in which we live, a hint of US presidential delivery is slipped in but this remains steadfastly a play about Hitler from which we may draw inferences rather than expect blatant soapboxing.
This is an impressive RSC hallmarked production which throws almost everything at the need for spectacle. Georgia Lowe’s design makes full use of height and colour and gives the setting of the cauliflower trade and its characters and colour and vibrance bordering on the cartoon.
There are nice touches everywhere. Vegetables turn out to be lethal weapons, signs tell us when to applaud and the fourth wall lies in tatters as you’d expect from this author.
For all the lessons that history, and the accusatory stares of actors from the stage, can teach us we still seem pitifully helpless when it comes to resisting the irresistible.
As befits the time and the topic, this is a violent play. Intimidation and execution are handled through eye-catching choreography coupled with a lot of offstage gunshots. Most chilling is the very blunt execution of a lone, bloodied woman raising her voice against the regime and being shot in fairly bald light right there on the stage.
Music punctuates the action but, in truth, is perhaps a little less impressive than its credentials led us to believe it might be.
For all its colour and bombast and the irrefutable power of its message, the is a production which does have faults. Brecht’s trademark heavyweight didacticism has not been entirely addressed in Stephen Sharkey’s new version. Some scenes, particularly in the second half, drag and lose their focus and the whole show would benefit from losing a good half-hour.
In the end we’re left with a production which is strong on style and presentation but which may need the length of its run to arrive at the peak of where it could go.
