COLLABORATION To 30 August.
Chichester.
COLLABORATION
by Ronald Harwood.
Minerva Theatre In rep to 30 August 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat 6, 15, 19, 22, 27 Aug 2.15pm 10 Aug 2pm.
Audio-described 6 Aug 2.15pm, 28 Aug 7.45pm.
Runs 2hr One interval.
TICKETS: 01243 781312.
www.cft.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 29 July.
Outstanding premier production for a heartfelt new play.
In Taking Sides, Ronald Harwood showed Europe emerging from the Nazis. This fine new play shows the darkness encroaching. Both focus on the contrast between humane, artistic values and repressive dogmatism.
In the early 1930s Richard Strauss, Germany’s most eminent composer, meets Stefan Zweig, the highly successful Austrian novelist. They break through initial nervousness of each other to work as librettist and composer of an opera based on Ben Jonson’s The Silent Woman. By the interval it seems a pleasant comedy of character, rounded-out by Strauss’s formidable ex-soprano wife and Zweig’s nervous housemaid and lover, Lotte.
But, like Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, this play is really a prologue and an act. The red light and barking Nazi broadcast opening the second part indicate how this artistic collaboration is to be wrecked. When the opera opens in Germany posters are silent about its librettist. For Zweig, like Lotte, is Jewish. As, compromising the composer’s opposition to the Nazis, is Strauss’s daughter-in-law.
The increasing pressures grip tightly, until the final image of Strauss shows him weeping before the post-war denazification committee over his friend’s fate. Played with dignity, this tricky moment is the culmination of Michael Pennington’s outstanding Strauss, delight in finding a new collaborator, anger and then fear at the Nazis, leading to this crushed figure set against a burst of the Four Last Songs.
He’s matched by David Horovitch’s Zweig, stammering in nervousness at meeting the great composer, moving through the pride and joy of being his artistic collaborator, then cut-off from the Europe in whose enlightened values he’d rejoiced, finding life no longer tolerable.
Representing the jackboot is Martin Hutson’s reptilian Hinkel (a link with Taking Sides). At first smilingly polite, the menace beneath the respectful surface becomes clear as the Nazi regime takes hold.
Sophie Roberts is admirable as the alert, loving Lotte, while Isla Blair subtly shows the affection under her stern manner as she whispers prompts to Strauss at the final tribunal. The dramatic power is chiefly a testament to Harwood, yet, like the fine performances, also pays tribute to Philip Franks’ detailed and sympathetic direction
Richard Strauss: Michael Pennington.
Pauline Strauss: Isla Blair.
Hans Hinkel: Martin Hutson.
Paul Adolph: Pip Donaghy.
Lotte Zweig: Sophie Roberts.
Stefan Zweig: David Horovitch.
Director: Philip Franks.
Designer: Simon Higlett.
Lighting: Mark Jonathan.
Sound: John Leonard.
Composer: Matthew Scott.
Design assistant: Gerry Bunzl.
2008-07-30 13:53:05