An interesting dynamic in a pre-Visionary play – Winnipeg Free Press

Quietly cheerful Martin Schulz (Arne MacPherson) is sleeping in his Munich living room in a silky, luxurious dressing gown when he receives his first communique from Max Eisenstein, a German expat in San Francisco. a person who is not in a hurry to change.

This is November 1932, where the characters are located Address unknown The final play of the Winnipeg Jewish Theater season, at the intersection of personal and national decision-making. On the one hand, hyperinflation of cash and nationalistic misery; on the other hand, the ultimate explosion of human ego and greed, characterized by a small man with a tiny mustache and gigantic plans for global domination.

A pre-visionary history written by American writer Kathryn Cressman Taylor in the 1930s, Address unknown a game about the clothes we wear at the behest of the new emperor, and more importantly, about people's willingness to wear the uniform of separatism.

Epistolary work, Address unknown a short story about cruelty defined by perception and ignorance.

On the Pacific coast, Eisenstein (Amitai Kedar) wears palazzo pants and a brown shirt with a buttoned collar. Although Eisenstein's partner in the art dealer Schulse returned to Heimatland, Eisenstein, a Jew, was engaged in the same line of business in America.

“I'm back in Germany!” How I envy you,” writes Eisenstein in his first transcontinental broadcast, his tone collegial and nostalgic.

In director Dan Petrenko's fast-paced adaptation of Cressman Taylor's original dialogue, the purposeful mixed message between these two characters is mostly delivered well, bolstered by Ksenia Broda-Milian's set design, which lends the space a well-observed stamp of authenticity.

It should be noted that if the structure of the performance is determined by the written word – the only means of communication available to both characters – the main actors are never in the same room. Each character remains in each other's psyche as they vacillate between friendship and rivalry.

This dynamic allows the artists to trade solos, while the restless party remains only in their posture, facial expressions and stage positions, emphasizing their responses as they receive new information in tandem with the audience.

McPherson is particularly adept at this type of gesture, resting his hands on his desk when Eisenstein's letters, at least according to Schulz, become tiresome. When he learns of the death of a dear relative, Kedar receives the news in a swivel chair, his back turned to the audience as he breaks down. By obscuring the cedar face, it allows audience members to appreciate their rough lines.

MacPherson, a Winnipeg theater founder, and Kedar, a Tel Aviv native, make an unusual pairing that elevates the work when the connection is broken, but sometimes makes it hard to imagine that their characters were friends in the first place. sole business partners.

This is mainly a chemical problem with the Cressman-Taylor text, which dates back to 1932 and does not shed much light on the origin of the Schulze-Eisenstein union. However, both actors bring unique perspectives and emotions to their characters, giving the audience an interesting opportunity to watch the two men mesh.

Broda-Milian's set and prop design offers a backdrop of history, covering the back wall with empty frames, dangling envelopes and a patchwork of newspaper articles. Emanu-El MagazineSan Francisco publication founded in 1895, now it Northern California Jewish News. Costume designer Julia Croft, who is also the voice of an unseen character, dresses the characters in the fabric of history.

A major omission from this set is the residence of the people involved in the fine art trade—any fine art itself. This may be a functional choice to draw attention to the cast, but it also feels like a missed opportunity to enhance the visual language of the play by including one or two works by relevant artists from the period. to the Munich Academy.

Given that Thursday night's screening was in preview format, there are several elements of audio turbulence that must be considered and accounted for during the rest of the production. Several times during the performance, Kedar's handheld microphone interfered, a technical difficulty that had to be resolved; Without the help of technology, Kedar could have made his voice loud enough to reach the back row of the Bernie Theater, and his character asked McPherson's Martin for a sense of brotherhood.

To Cressman Taylor's credit, whose work was highly regarded as a scholar during his lifetime, his writing retains the ability to surprise—a necessity in a work of speculative or revisionist fiction, especially if the events it predicts happen in a famous and catastrophic way.

There is a compelling element to the shifting dynamic of these two ordinary men, as they are moved by national hatred, moving in Eisenstein's case to mistrust, to Schulz's startling acceptance of anti-Semitism and xenophobia in all their stages of development. self-defense tools.

“As for the austerity measures that bother you so much, I didn't like them at first, but I came to see their painful necessity,” he says, dropping his cloak into a black jacket decorated with brass buttons and epaulettes, blaming Eisenstein's suffering at the feet of his people.

“Oh, Max, it hurts you, I know, but you have to face the truth,” she continued. “There are movements much bigger than the men who build them. As for me, I am part of the movement.'

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