Brecht’s Arturo Ui opens Landestheater season

The Landestheater Niederösterreich in St. Pölten opened its new season on Saturday with Bertolt Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui. The production marks Patricia Nickel-Dönicke’s debut as artistic director, ORF reported.

Nickel-Dönicke worked with the new ensemble and 11 directors to stage what APA culture critic Ewald Baringer described as a spectacular opening. Beginning a new artistic directorship with Brecht’s play about the rise of fascism sends a strong message, he wrote.

The production follows a malicious vegetable racketeer who rises to become a political leader. Its set features a large crucifix, a wrecked car with St. Pölten licence plates, a Wurlitzer jukebox, vertically arranged signal lights and red-white-red flags. The images leave room for symbolism and association.

The 11-member ensemble is highly present from the outset. Bettina Kerl plays Arturo Ui before Max Kurth takes over the role, functioning almost as her mirror image. Kerl portrays an androgynous climber with steely determination, while Kurth begins as a friendly seducer who moves through the crowd, shakes hands and signals reliability.

In one of the production’s strongest scenes, the two dance beneath a disco ball to pounding techno rhythms. Their movements repeatedly turn into fascist signs and poses. Kurth eventually carries Kerl, who has become a kind of dancing machine, off the stage and takes over the role.

Michael Scherff, also from the former ensemble, plays Dogsborough as an old gangster and defender of the system who has been stripped of his dignity and rendered powerless by the new regime. He performs Konstantin Wecker’s song Willy, although the reason for its inclusion is not entirely clear. Scherff is convincing without it, portraying the character in an appealingly old-fashioned way.

Mika Pavle Kuruc plays Dogsborough’s son Mulberry as a yes-man and echo. Emma Bahlmann, Philippe Thelen, who also plays the journalist Dullfeed and a judge, and Caroline Baas portray the members of the Karfiol-Trust in pinstriped suits. They represent the major industrialists. Felix Thewanger is an ideal enforcer as the heavy-set, sunglasses-wearing Ernesto Roma.

The production frequently uses pop music, including The Cars’ Drive, I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire and The Police’s stalking anthem Every Breath You Take. Numerous sound inserts, visual effects and video sequences shown from the theatre boxes maintain the audience’s attention.

Brecht himself appears as a puppet, touchingly trying to have the play performed in the United States before being told by telephone that there is no fascism in America. It is one of the production’s many sarcastic moments, which mostly avoids excessive didacticism while remaining disturbing in its intensity.

The audience is presented as a powerless body of spectators. Members of the city ensemble represent it on stage as the Stille Mitte, or Silent Centre.

The production is a bold opening that will not please everyone, the review concluded. Its central message is contained in the play’s epilogue: The womb is still fertile from which this crawled. That message, it said, cannot unfortunately be dismissed.