Mob rule in spin city
Rachel Halliburton
Evening Standard, 31 July 2002
The eager maniacal grin of Arturo Ui has been sported by
more than one actor with a talent for malign comedy and
a tendency towards stage domination. Indeed, it is impossible
to watch anyone who plays Brecht's Hitler-styled anti-hero
without seeing the stage ghosts of Anthony Sher, Leonard
Rossiter and Al Pacino behind him, anxiously comparing notes
as to whether they have been outshone in the theatrical
dictatorship stakes.
Here, the gangster movie aesthetic has been lovingly embraced
by director Phil Willmott, who has appointed Peter Polycarpou
as the new goose-stepping lead. Brecht produced the script
in three weeks in 1941, while he was waiting in Helsinki
for his US visa, and the writer's American obsession is
revealed in a comic depiction that makes Hitler look like
the big bad brother of Al Capone. Polycarpou rises to the
challenge, mustering an appropriately supremacist glint-in-the-eye
as Ui, and bringing a defiant swagger to the Chicago gangster
hell-bent on taking over the city's greengrocery trade.
However, in this high-energy production,
the dialogue is delivered with the speed and impact of a
bullet, achieving the somewhat ambiguous result that the
audience member feels bludgeoned as well as entertained.
It is uncertain, also, whether Brecht's play entirely stands
the test of time.
Andy de la Tour's new translation manages
to make the jokes sound corny as well as hammy. Yet some
of the naïveté is more than compensated for by the scene
where sin and spin come together, as Ui takes training from
a classical actor appropriately well-versed in Shakespearean
villains. The financial corruption, too, has unhappily discernible
echoes in today's political world.
The production's highlight, however, is
visual, as Willmott conjures up 1930's celluloid America
in a swirl of mist and silhouettes. The chill when Hitler
is viewed from behind is a satisfying indication that the
play has cast it's sinister spell.
