Having begun its German season with a
play by the “in yer face”-influenced playwright Marius von Mayenburg,
one of two of his works currently in the repertoire of the
Schaubühne in Berlin, the Royal Court now continues with a new
piece by in-yer-face godfather Mark Ravenhill, which after its run here
goes straight to the Schaubühne to join the three plays of
his which are also in the
repertoire. I’m not talking about cosiness, but consistency. This looks
and feels very like a Schaubühne show: the combination of elegance
and extremity, high concept and intense humanity is the same blend we
have seen on visits to London of productions by that house’s artistic
director Thomas Ostermeier.
The white, ceilinged but doorless box set that was used for von
Mayenburg’s
The Stone is now
piled with packets of grocery and household products, from cornflakes
to toilet roll. In this play about the personality conflicts of German
reunification, we don’t need to consider material
ism, we can see the material itself
being applied… and, especially in the closing phase of the 70-minute
piece, applied very messily to the body of Harry Treadaway. He plays
Franz, brought up in the DDR by his father when his mother and twin
brother Karl fled to the West, and now reunited with Karl in young
adulthood, just as the two Germanies become one. The point is that they
become one big West Germany: not a commingling but a takeover.
Franz’s twin Karl is played by Harry Treadaway’s twin Luke, in a
so-simple-it’s-brilliant conceit. When “Karli” and “Franzl” speak each
other’s sentences in unison and share their telepathic memories of
crucial moments, our suspension of disbelief is of a different order
than usual. Not that it’s difficult to tell them apart, even if they
weren’t wearing different coloured underwear: Luke Treadaway, whose
career so far has mostly been on stage, has greater physical precision,
whereas Harry, who has done much screen work but is here making his
stage début, is more fluid and natural in his movements.
Ravenhill’s script (which he co-directs with Ramin Gray) plays out
clearly the differences in life and outlook between (former) “Ossis”
and “Wessis”. It almost amounts to a
Lehrstück,
but without any condescension or priggishness in its didacticism. (To
keep the ick factor raised, there is also a graphic allusion to the
Armin Meiwes cannibalism case.) It will be very much against the taste
of many; as for me, I loved it and I really want to see how it plays
over there.
Written for the Financial
Times.