AN AUDIENCE WITH THE MAFIA. To 3 April.

London

AN AUDIENCE WITH THE MAFIA

New End Theatre To 3 April 2003
Tue-Sat 8.15pm Sun 6pm
Runs 2hr 10min One interval

TICKETS: 020 7794 0022
Review: Timothy Ramsden 20 March

Material that hits you with a vice-like grip.This unique show is beyond criticism. And not only because its anonymous narrator, who holds the stage behind his shaded specs, is identified in the programme only as The Mercy Man. The Mercy Man being an English assassin hired to bump off a Philadelphia mafia boss for being too nice. That's not the main reason. Oh no.

This walking encyclopaedia of things mafiosi may lecture more than act – though he's a lecturer with theatrical propensities. Never mind; technique would only shield the raw horror-humour of this story of 20th century organised U.S. crime.

The script ties closely with a fascinating sequence of pictures. Don after don appears; smart-clothed salesmen rather than shady hoods. Unless they're spread across car-seat, couch or carpet, gouged by gaping bullet-holes. Gang rivalry or skimming the Boss's profits were the two big killers in this underworld.

The story is told with the sophistication of a well-plotted film. From 1941, we switch back to 1940 when one of the gang became a canary that sang, sending former associates to a high-voltage appointment at Sing-Sing. From there it's back to 1932 and the story of Murder Incorporated – all returning to 1941 and the 'canary's' sudden death in police custody.

There's Al Capone, who bought up the town of Cicero, providing Brecht's model for Arturo Ui, then lived his last years on his estate, dying ravaged by syphilis. And Dutch Schultz: who was Jewish, taking his name from a member of a 19th century gang of New York.

There's show-business and Las Vegas: fittingly for a web that began with a gambler, Arnold Rothstein, who funded the first Prohibition-busting whisky smuggling, setting Al Capone (but not Louis 'No Relation' Capone), Dutch Schultz and others on their criminal paths. Among his entourage was Lucky Luciano, deported to Italy and eliminated when he tried raising funds by selling his life-story to Hollywood.

The mafia is a democracy, we're told: presumably, seeing the distortion of democracy occasionally glimpsed, the remark's ironic.Yet the final toast to John Gotti, last grand-master of crime, suggests the awful fascination of corrupted power is exercising its forceful charm.

Narrator: The Mercy Man

Director: Simon Langton
Designer: Tamasin Rhymes
Lighting: Paddy Crawley
Sound: David Lozdan
Special Effects Design: Unreal
Visual Effects: Adam Kramer

2003-03-22 03:18:44