TOM FOOL. To 21 April.
Glasgow/London
TOM FOOL
by Franz Xaver Kroetz translated by Estella Schmid and Anthony Vivis
Citizens’ Theatre (Circle Studio) To 18 November 2006
Tue-Sat 7.30pm
Runs 2hr 5min One interval
TICKETS: 0141 429 0022
www.citz.co.uk
Transferred to Bush Theatre Shepherds Bush Green W12 8QD London To 21 April 2007
Mon-Sat 8pm Mat Sat 3pm
TICKETS: 020 7610 4224
www.bushtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 11 November
Downbeat reality filled with strong performances.
Anyone who’s asked themselves how they’ve got to a certain point in their lives, might replay the past in the manner of Franz Xaver Kroetz’s Mensch Meier, as a series of brief, sometimes momentary glimpses. Though events happen chronologically, the impact of scenes is less linear than cumulative, adding up to deep, exposed unhappiness.
Otto Meier isn’t exactly an Everyman. But he’s typical of the unimaginative industrial worker whose respectability is based on following what the bosses want and the status money provides. Worrying away pointlessly at the details of a bill fascinates Otto, while he repeatedly puts his teenage son down for having no income. Insufficient money, and related loss of face in public, finally splits the Meier family.
Each scene’s given a projected title, identifying steps on the way to meltdown. These titles carry ironies as early as the second scene, where the ‘Guests’ are royalty, who provide a brief fantasy life while the Meiers watch their marriage on TV.
Within the Meier home, each family member has a place of seclusion, where reality can be faced or evaded in isolation: Ludwig’s sofa-bed, for mother Martha the bathroom, while Otto escapes to an attic (designer Paul Burgess aptly cramps him over an entrance to the small performance space) to imagine glory as a model-glider pilot.
Clare Lizzimore’s production creates the mundane reality of each moment while building a sense of remoteness, a feel of the ordinary as something alienated. For Otto is alienated from human relationships, finding identity only in a role, as worker or father. He publicly distances himself from Martha when she might embarrass him over money, then can’t cope when she moves to live apart from him.
Liam Brennan’s Otto is doggedly unimaginative outside his private fantasies of fame and TV attention. Richard Madden’s Ludwig reacts against his father, but there’s always the risk that when financial realities hit him he’ll end up like dad. Meg Fraser gives an understated yet powerful portrait of Martha, her warm everyday happiness turning to cold fixity and suppressed fury till she leaves home and finds an incomplete content.
Otto Meier: Liam Brennan
Martha Meier: Meg Fraser
Ludwig Meier: Richard Madden
Director: Clare Lizzimore
Designer: Paul Burgess
Lighting/Sound: Graham Sutherland
2007-04-17 00:23:46