| Guardian
Review of
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
Abbey, Dublin
In Brecht's allegorical play, which transposes the rise of
Hitler to 1930s Chicago, the focus is intended to fall on
the city's leaders, whose inaction allows a ruthless demagogue
to rise to power. But in this compelling production by Jimmy
Fay, Arturo Ui and his henchmen command every second of our
attention. Combining Hollywood glamour with thuggery, they
strut across Conor Murphy's atmospheric set - warehouses with
vegetable crates and carcasses - and seem unstoppable.
Fay has invigorated this didactic play by locating it within
a satirical American landscape, punctuated by an immense US
flag. It's not subtle, but it dilutes the literal identification
between Arturo Ui and Hitler, allowing us to draw more recent
political parallels. The chronicle of events leading up to
Hitler's putsch are announced by megaphone at the beginning
of each scene, in a throw-away style that suggests we can
take them or leave them.
The production takes an equally relaxed approach to Brecht's
strictures about creating a distancing effect in performance.
The ensemble playing - by Aidan Kelly, Karl Shiels, Ronan
Leahy and Kate Brennan - is so strong and energetic that a
sense of suspense is created, despite the known outcome.
In one scene, Arturo Ui appears as a gigantic puppet presiding
over a corrupt courtroom, but even at his normal size Tom
Vaughan-Lawlor is a towering presence, particularly when he
takes tuition from a hammy old actor. Cupping his hand behind
his ear, he slowly extends his arm into the Nazi salute, and
in an instant has switched from Chaplinesque clowning into
the familiar goose-stepping figure. It is one of many moments
to savour from this confidently un-Brechtian Brecht production.
The
Irish Times
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
Abbey Theatre, Dublin
There is an astonishing moment in the Abbey's striking new
production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui that halts
Bertolt Brecht's splenetic parody in its tracks, a moment
so chilling that icicles form in the air.
Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as the mercurial Ui, a Chicago gangster
and despot in the making, is taking ridiculous lessons from
an image consultant - Des Cave's washed-up actor - and playing
with his mannerisms like a child with a loaded gun.
Suddenly he hits on a particular gesture, a salute so familiar,
so easy to lampoon, that it shouldn't shock us. But it does.
His arm held aloft with unnerving intensity, it slices through
the innumerable references in Vaughan-Lawlor's extraordinary
performance - the crumpled posture of Richard III, the Runyonesque
"Noo Yoik" accent, the hyper-animation of Charlie
Chaplin - and delivers not just a stunning picture of Hitler
but a lesson in the dangerous allure of spectacle.
Jimmy Fay's production may arrive suffused with contextual
parallels, carrying echoes of the 1929 depression and political
disaffection into the present day, but its depiction of Chicago
gangsters muscling in on the cauliflower business places its
satiric emphasis squarely on America.
Conor Murphy's design, a starkly impressive picture of industrial
grey recesses lined with vegetable crates and meathooks, also
finds room for American iconoclast Jasper Johns, whose American
Flag looms over the stage, while Denis Clohessy's thrillingly
effective music extends a guest appearance to Jimi Hendrix's
Star-Spangled Banner , piercing though the play's sham trial
scene.
Such criticism may seem heavy-handed, particularly when the
American political narrative has just entered one of its most
hopeful chapters.
Similarly, Brecht's allegory - written in 1941, before the
true horror of the "final solution" - is stodgy
with political detail, leadenly announcing its historical
allusions, here delivered by George Seremba through a loudhailer.
For all the anti-illusion and distancing dictums of Brecht's
epic theatre, Fay's production is most absorbing for its rich
and rough aesthetic.
Presenting Ui as a 20ft judge, towering over a perversion
of justice, may overstate the point, but it feeds the imagination.
Likewise, whatever Brecht's misgivings about the seduction
of performance, it's the cast who hold the attention like
a vice.
Ui's clownish cavorting and paranoid twisting wouldn't be
so effective without Eamon Morrissey's haunted stillness as
the corrupted Dogsborough, or Aidan Kelly's nerveless tough
guy, Roma.
Kate Brennan and Malcolm Adams also distinguish themselves
among an excellent supporting cast.
Ultimately, though, this is Tom Vaughan-Lawlor's show. His
Ui uncurls at the play's beginning like an awakening monster,
tears through it with bravura (anyone who thinks he's overdoing
it should take a quick glance at the actual Hitler) and ends
it on a pedestal surrounded by the corrupt, cowed and coerced.
Brecht wrote the play to show how such creatures could be
stopped.
The charismatic demon and the appalling, enthralling momentum
of the show seem to say the opposite. Resistance is useless.
PETER CRAWLEY
©
IRISH THEATRE MAGAZINE
Theatre:
Fay brings fresh life to Brecht classic
Sunday, November 16, 2008 - By Helen Boylan
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. By Bertolt Brecht, Abbey
Theatre, Dublin, Until December 6
To
draw contemporary parallels with the themes of economic downturn
and political corruption in Bertolt Brecht’s 1941 play
is to miss the point of the German playwright’s avant-garde
work.
The
Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is unmistakably of its time -
the late 1930s, when Tommy gun-toting gangsters are wreaking
havoc in America and Hitler is achieving despotic omnipotence
across the Atlantic.
Brecht’s
farce about the rise of a fictional fascist dictator called
Arturo Ui, is a clever merge of the dark and the hilarious.
As an announcer (George Seremba) declares to the audience
at the start: ‘‘Everything you see tonight is
true; nothing is new or has been made to order just for you,”
he refers to the fact that each of the characters we are about
to meet had a real-life counterpart.
The
play is set in Chicago, where cauliflower profits are plummeting,
sending ripples of panic throughout the market. In these times
of crisis, morals go out the window, old partners avoid each
other and men are afraid that their brothers will ask for
a loan.
While
society is grappling with the new economic reality, Ui - a
power-hungry gangster and self-proclaimed ‘son of the
Bronx’ - sees an opportunistic opening.
Using
the superficial mantra that the vegetable trade needs protection,
Ui sweeps through Chicago using extortion, threats and murder
to extract a protection fee from its citizens.
With
judges, lawyers and cops soon trapped under Ui’s thumb,
his insatiable lust for power grows exponentially.
Director
Jimmy Fay (Saved, The Seafarer) assuredly handles a 19-strong
cast. Pacy and absorbing, under Fay’s direction the
play references Jimi Hendrix, Jasper Johns and (perhaps) Gerald
Scarfe. But it is Tom Vaughan-Lawlor’s unflinching performance
as Ui, an allegorical Hitler, that elevates this production
from entertaining to mesmerising.
After
he first appears on stage - all sweaty and smarmy, his slight
stature doubled over, talking with a caricatured ‘New
Yoik’ Bronx accent that hangs thick in the air - subsequent
scenes in which he does not appear are ripe with apprehension
for his next entrance.
Imitating
Hitler’s own grossly exaggerated mannerisms with a greater
sense of danger than Charlie Chaplin did in The Great Dictator,
Vaughan-Lawlor imbues his absurdly animated Ui with brilliantly
controlled animation.
Whether
he is fretting (bent over and slowly slicking down his black
hair) or, in one of this production’s most arresting
scenes which is as funny as it is unsettling (receiving coaching
in speaking, walking and sitting) Vaughan-Lawlor delivers
a theatrical tour de force.
Save
for a few splashes of colour in the form of red roses and
meat-hooked carcasses, Conor Murphy’s smartly monochromatic
set, Paul Keogan’s effective lighting design and a range
of tautly understated performances from the rest of the cast
(in particular Aidan Kelly’s Roma, Jane Brennan’s
Betty Dullfeet and Eamon Morrissey’s Dogsborough) allow
Ui’s exaggerated vigour to shine.
Rating:
*****
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RTE Review of
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
Written
by: Berlolt Brecht
Directed by: Jimmy Fay
Starring:
Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Eamon Morrissey, Aidan Kelly, Jane Brennan,
Des Cave, Diarmaid Murtagh, George Seremba, Karl Shiels,
Kate Brennan, Malcolm Adams.
Location & Date: The Abbey Theatre until 9 December.
'The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui', Berlolt Brecht's allegorical
1941 play, is a satire of Hitler's rise to power in Nazi
Germany. Set in 1930's Chicago, it follows fictional character
Arturo Ui, a ruthless and paranoid hoodlum who takes advantage
of economic instability to take control of the vegetable
trade through fear and the violence of his henchmen.
All of the characters and events mirror real-life people
and happenings in Nazi Germany, from the gangster Ernesto
Roma representing Ernst Rohm, to the warehouse fire representing
the fire at the Reichstag.
The play has the stamp of Brecht's 'epic' style of theatre,
it opens with a prologue outlining the main characters and
subsequent plot, giving the audience a better chance to
focus on the message. To further clarify the parallels between
the stories, details of Hitler's rise to power are bellowed
through a megaphone during set changes by George Seremba.
The dramatic technique of planting extras in the audience
gave an extra dimension to the play, giving you a real sense
of being part of the proceedings.
The scene of the farcical trial is the most visually stunning
of the play, where Ui is presented as a 20ft judge towering
over the courtroom as an innocent man is framed for a deed
he did not commit. Playing up the perverted justice of the
times by enlarging the judge to such ridiculous proportions
sounds laboured and heavy-handed, but it was entrancing
to watch.
Conor Murphy's accomplished set design sees the stage strewn
with meat hooks, vegetable crates and off-kilter benches,
with large neon signs gliding up and down above the scenes.
From a palette reminiscent of sepia toned photographs with
lots of grey and brown, splashes of blood red in roses,
lipstick and bloodied carcasses are all the more evocative.
The costumes are wonderfully realised, from the sharp mobster
suits and trench coats to the gorgeous Marilyn Monroe-esque
evening gowns of the femme fatale Betty Dullfeet (Brennan).
Tom Vaughan-Lawlor's Arturo Ui is mesmerising. He is in
turns hilarious and chilling at the egomaniacal gangster.
His energetic performance is part clownish Charlie Chaplin,
mixed with Hitler's strong mannerisms. Stooped over and
frantically gesturing at all times, with a strong Chicago
drawl, he puts on a tireless performance throughout. The
supporting cast are all excellent, from Eamon Morrissey's
corrupted and ageing Dogsborough to Aidan Kelly's brutal
bad guy Roma.
Coming in at just over two and a half hours, the first act,
in parts, seems bloated, but the action speeds up leading
up to the interval, and the second act is utterly entrancing.
The play is full of black humour - riveting and a pleasure
to watch unfold due to the strong performances, flawless
stage production, inspired sets and lighting and the chilling
resonance it still has today.
Sarah McIntyre
The
Sunday Independent
No weak links in a dazzling double act
Sunday November 16 2008
A WEEK with two inspired presentations of supremely high
quality with dazzling production values is a rarity. But
last week was one of those weeks,with Brecht at the Abbey,
and Gogol from Performance Corporation at the Project.
Brecht can be visually and verbally heavy going; it's as
though directors are in such awe of his gloomily savage
message that they fear a light touch. Not in Jimmy Fay's
case: his production of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
is a riot in several senses of the word: colourful, pacy,
hilariously funny in places, but relentlessly uncompromising
in its condemnation of Europe's servile capitulation to
the vileness of fascism.
Fay's superb concept reeks of danger, violence, isolation
and treachery as double bluff and betrayal stalk the rise
to dictatorship of the twisted, psychotic Hitler/Ui, from
the Bronx through the Chicago shipyards to the peaceful
verdancies of Cicero (Austria). The culminating moment comes
when Ui, having had Cicero's leading newspaper publisher
murdered, reduces his widow to compliance by raping her
young daughter in front of her, in a sickening reminder
that Hitler is reputed to have raped his own niece whom
he "worshipped".
It is eerily apposite that it all begins seemingly innocently:
a decent businessman merely bends the rules by issuing a
loan from his own company to another he has just acquired,
starting a pattern of unethical behaviour which leaves the
way open for Ui's dark presence. Fay is soaringly well served
by a cast without a weak link in performance or characterisation.
The standard is set by Tom Vaughan Lawlor's inspired portrayal
of the lead role: physically rubberised, verbally running
through the octaves, spiritually swooping through the depths
of any hell he can find to impose on others; and all achieved
on the perfection of a Chaplin-esque underlay. This is acting
of extraordinary quality.
Aidan Kelly, Karl Shiels and Malcolm Adams are the three
leading contenders for brutal horror, with Kate Brennan
as one of the blood-spattered innocent casualties and Eamonn
Morrissey as the gullible Dogsborough, both superb at the
two ends of the emotional spectrum of despair, and Jane
Brennan as the dignified and terrified Betty Dullfeet. But
they are merely the larger stars: there are no weak links.
Conor Murphy's design and Paul Keogan's lighting are chillingly
superb, as is Denis Clohessy's music. There's no credit
for the excellent choreography, but Paul Burke is responsible
for the terrific fight sequences.
The
Irish Independent
Irresistible satire of evil gangster's rise to power
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
The Abbey Theatre
By John McKeown
Thursday November 13 2008
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui The Abbey Theatre
Did Bertolt Brecht really believe his gangster's rise to
power, paralleling Hitler's in Germany, was 'resistible'?
It seems anything but. The good guys get a few uninspiring
lines while the ones who aren't outright murderers are married
to greed.
But though it doesn't offer a formula for resistance to
evil, this play remains one of the most powerful narratives
of its eruption and accommodation. On every level, this
is the best Abbey production I've seen for a couple of years.
Tom Vaughan Lawlor's Arturo is simply stunning. Imagine
Jack Nicholson in full manic flow playing Charlie Chaplin
as 'The Great Dictator' with Basil Fawlty's mocking body
language.
Though there's plenty to laugh at, particularly when Arturo
is being given lessons in voice and deportment from a tipsy
ham actor (Des Cave), the tide of terror beneath his rise
to the heights of power exerts an unflagging pressure.
As someone said during interval drinks, it's a scary show.
And not just because Vaughan Lawlor makes Gollum look cuddly.
His henchmen and partners: Karl Shiels, Aidan Kelly, and
Malcom Adams radiate physical danger like bouncers soaked
in Lynx body spray.
Some ensemble scenes are gloriously phantasmagoric. Malcom
Adams' character is on trial for burning down a warehouse,
but the whole courtroom apart from a single lawyer is in
Arturo's pocket. Not least the judge, a giant bewigged puppet
with monstrous hands and Ui in the driving seat. At no point
is any part of the Abbey's ample stage left underused, it's
shrunk and expanded with liquid facility, and even at full
stretch, when Arturo is having his 'Night of the Long Knives',
the empty spaces seems suffused with clouds of blood.
Director Jimmy Fay adds some Brechtian touches of his own.
Given Obama's electoral win there seems something refreshingly
sacrilegious in ending the first act with Jimmy Hendrix's
'Star Spangled Banner' as an innocent girl is riddled with
bullets.
- John McKeown
Irish
Theatre Magazine
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
By Bertolt Brecht Abbey Theatre Directed by Jimmy Fay Set
and Costume Design: Conor Murphy Lighting Design: Paul Keogan
Sound Design: Denis Clohessy With: Malcolm Adams, Ian-Lloyd
Anderson, Jane Brennan, Kate Brennan , Des Cave, John Cronin,
Peter Gaynor, Bosco Hogan, Damien Kearney, Aidan Kelly,
Tom Vaughan Lawlor, Ronan Leahy, Eamon Morrissey, Diarmaid
Murtagh, Ciaran O’Brien, Philip O’Sullivan,
George Seremba, Karl Shiels, and Shawn Sturnick 11 November
– 6 December 2008 Reviewed 11 November by Sara Keating
It would take a phenomenal intervention to make fascism
seem attractive, especially in a play about the rise of
Hitler. It can be difficult to think of Hitler as human
let alone as sympathetic, and he was certainly less than
charming. We have seen the historical footage, yet while
the short, slight, moustachioed mumbler might not seem like
the type of figure to pull a crowd, he did. Hitler controlled
the imagination of an entire country with his unlikely ideals
of an Aryan master race, as improbable as such eugenic theories
seem now. Brecht’s veiled portrait of Der Führer
in The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui was written in 1941
before the full consequences of Hitler’s power had
revealed themselves. However, in his awesome performance
as the eponymous anti-hero, Tom Vaughan Lawlor manages to
turn even an audience well-equipped with historical hindsight
into ardent acolytes.
From his opening spidery shuffle across the stage, Lawlor’s
elastic Ui demands our attention. While his power and conviction
grows, he slowly uncurls, acquiring physical authority as
he acquires allies, sculpting straight-backed stature from
a twisted posture and commanding our curiosity with deadly
conviction. With a manic mix of menace and charm, he is
both playful clown and crazy despot, both hilarious and
horrifying at the same time. The layers of irony that this
blend of absurdity and stark reality expose suffuse every
element of Brecht’s complex and challenging play.
It is important to stress that as much as The Resistible
Rise of Arturo Ui is a dense political drama, it is also
a vividly entertaining satire. The historical facts are
tersely revealed by an Announcer’s direct addresses
to the audience, here played by a mischievous, if slightly
muffled, George Seremba, dressed in full regalia of top
hat, coat and tails. What unfolds on stage, however, is
a 1920s gangster film, the Chicago setting serving as a
microcosm for the historical events, while the ridiculous
cauliflower plot underscores the arbitrary nature of the
avenues explored by the human appetite for power.
Jimmy Fay’s production takes a little time to find
the right tone for Brecht’s quite serious parody,
but when it does it is compulsive and mesmerising, the pace
steadily sharpened by Denis Clohessy’s unsettling
score as the inevitable finale eventually unfolds. Ui’s
transformation scene is hilariously staged, like a pantomime,
as Ui studies his Shakespeare alongside Des Cave’s
Actor, borrowing Julius Caesar in more ways than one and
arriving at his own intimidating gesture of individuality.
The key trial scene is also executed with inventive brilliance:
the jury tableau and Ui’s giant towering judge creating
a stunning visual picture of power. The 19-strong cast serve
Fay’s imposing anti-hero well. As Lawlor’s Ui
literally rises from ignominy, so Eamon Morrissey’s
haunted white-faced Dogsborough is gradually debilitated,
finally collapsing in a wheelchair with a hopeless wheeze.
Meanwhile, Aidan Kelly’s burly bully-boy Roma flexes
his wrists with real menace, and Malcom Adam’s Giri
hovers unsettlingly close to the edge of sanity, both pretenders
to a throne that they could not fill, even if the opportunity
arose. Kate Brennan’s Mollster figure, meanwhile,
provides a welcome female antidote to the heady masculine
world, although there is more vice than virtue under her
brassy blonde wig.
Finally, Conor Murphy’s stark allusive set helps to
establish the production’s contemporary relevance.
A gauzy American flag draws attention to the transparency
of power, while the juxtaposition of a bloody carcass against
the stars and stripes presents a visual critique of recent
American military campaigns. In the wake of the recent American
election, it could be argued that the production is just
slightly out of date in its reach towards topicality; however
that would be to ignore the very real sense of suspicion
that The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui effects. As Ui makes
his rousing election speech – "and I axe you,
who is for me? And just in passing if anyone is not for
me, they’re against me" – it is not just
George Bush that springs to mind. Even with the spirit of
optimism that Barack Obama’s election has ushered
in, it is prudent to remember that it was his rhetoric and
charisma that seduced the American voters too. Ultimately
Brecht’s play manages to transcend its historical
genesis, as the epilogue makes clear. The Resistible Rise
of Arturo Ui is not merely a play about Hitler or fascism
or World War Two. It is a timeless meditation on the compulsive
seduction of power.
Sara Keating is a critic and journalist. She is a judge
for The Irish Times Theatre Awards.
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