CurtainUp
CurtainUp
The Internet Theater Magazine of Reviews, Features, Annotated Listings
HOME PAGE

SITE GUIDE

SEARCH


REVIEWS

REVIEW ARCHIVES

ADVERTISING AT CURTAINUP

FEATURES

NEWS
Etcetera and
Short Term Listings


LISTINGS
Broadway
Off-Broadway

NYC Restaurants

BOOKS and CDs

OTHER PLACES
Berkshires
London
California
New Jersey
DC
Connecticut
Philadelphia
Elsewhere

QUOTES

TKTS

PLAYWRIGHTS' ALBUMS

LETTERS TO EDITOR

FILM

LINKS

MISCELLANEOUS
Free Updates
Masthead
A CurtainUp Philadelphia Review
Playing Leni
I am an artist. My only weapon is inspiration.— Leni
Playing Leni
Robert Daponte and Amanda Grove
(Photo: Paola Nogueras)
In Playing Leni, Madhouse Theater Company offers a mixture of attempted comedy, truths, possible truths, and equivocations. It's an invented account of incidents concerning Leni Riefenstahl, whose films aided the rise of a new Germany, inspired Hitler adulation, and abetted the Nazi cause. How good was she? Let's put it this way, had she been born in Rome, Mussolini would have gotten a lot more respect.

Before the live part of the production begins, a B&W film shows enormous numbers of goose-stepping troops intercut with heroic shots of Hitler, who salutes as more and more troops endlessly march by. If you can manage to goose-step outside the film's content to look critically at the images, you see Riefenstahl's remarkable artistry and expert eye for light, dark, composition, spectacle, and drama.

Eventually the long lines of Nazis on the screen give way to a small two-actor farce performed on stage by Amanda Grove as Leni Riefenstahl and Robert DaPonte as The Soldier. The characters' initially caricatured and skit-like exchanges are followed by a "real," yet still overstated acting style that trivializes the play and eclipses the actors' abilities. The old B&W film footage is more viscerally real than the real actors.

The story on stage takes place within a framework of the characters acting in and repeatedly revising scenes for a movie. The larger play, along with the movie ostensibly being made concerns Riefenstahl's possibly revisionist, palatable spin on her history. Eventually she points her camera at The Soldier, but the movie thread is inconsistent, and it unravels.

Although by design the comedy is bombastic, several little moments directed by Seth Reichgott, are truly funny. For instance, there's a crazy car-driving scene backgrounded by a rearview video of Bavarian-looking countryside. The show also benefits from Daniel Perelstein's nicely turned out sound effects.

The clash of artificially presented humor butts up against the opening film's solar plexis-hitting reality, and creates a dissonance that goes well beyond what's evidently intended by the playwrights. On the heels of the powerful opening film, the pseudo-comic treatment around an ethical question makes for a divide this play can't bridge. The incongruity produces gut level unease and an underlying sense of inappropriateness.

This is not comfortable like The Producers, which could successfully bring us "Springtime for Hitler" because it never flirted with real tragedy. If, instead of opening with a visual bombardment of actual filmed Nazis, Playing Leni had opened with something like Donald Duck in Der Fuehrer's Face or Chaplin's The Great Dictator, the whole effect might have been different and this production might have been less trivial and more congruent. Or maybe not.

Writers David Robson and John Stanton (Madhouse founder) presented part of this work at Spark 10 Showcase. (Titled Dysfictional Circumstances, it won the '10 Hotel Obligado Audience Award for New Work.) A version was presented at the Philly Fringe. While the writers' talent and dedication are not in question, the detailed research that designing this show surely entailed doesn't come through with enough substantive information. A way needs to be found to flesh out the person and issues under examination and to open up the kinds of questions the writers are attempting to elicit. So this comedy, essentially a scan that is out of its depth, tacitly invites the audience to make uninformed speculations and unsupported attempts at judgments.

Playing Leni is at once an uneasy alliance of film images, a spoof, and a lite investigation into questions regarding the Leni conundrum. Madhouse Theater Company has done a good thing bringing the piece to a full stage production where it can be seen and discussed. The theater should address issues like this one. Maybe in the process the writers will take away insights. Theater always needs the winds of new works blowing through. And it's the small theater companies, though strapped and on the edge, that are well placed to take chances producing new work. It's a big job that older, traditionally heavily subscriber-based theaters often won't risk doing. So kudos to Madhouse for taking on this new play and having fun with it in the process.

Note 1: Does it bother anyone else that Leni's name is frequently mispronounced, as it is in this play? Leni Riefenstahl, born in Berlin, was not an American boy. Her name is pronounced "Lay-nee" with the European long a sound for the e. It's disconcerting to hear her called "Lenny," something akin to pronouncing the great German composer Wagner's name as if he were related to actor Robert Wagner.

Note 2: It was a sweltering Opening Night when the play was performed in a criminally hot theater space. The new Adrienne Theatre Skybox is a sweatbox. The theater needs air conditioning or fans. Can some kind donor dig down and come up with a contribution for that? Luckily the show is just 70 minutes long. Another ten minutes and it's likely the performers and audience would have passed out from heat prostration.

Playing Leni by David Robson and John Stanton
Directed by Seth Reichgott


Cast: Amanda Grove and Robert DaPonte
Scenic Design: Lance Kniskern
Lighting and Projection Design: Joshua L. Schulman
Costume Design: Regina M. Rizzo
Sound Design: Daniel Perelstein
May 27- June 11, Opening 06/01/11
70 minutes
Reviewed by Kathryn Osenlund based on 06/01 performance. At Adrienne Theatre Skybox. 2030 Sansom St.
REVIEW FEEDBACK
Highlight one of the responses below and click "copy" or"CTRL+C"
  • I agree with the review of Playing Leni
  • I disagree with the review of Playing Leni
  • The review made me eager to see Playing Leni
Click on the address link E-mail: esommer@curtainup.com
Paste the highlighted text into the subject line (CTRL+ V):

Feel free to add detailed comments in the body of the email. . .also the names and emails of any friends to whom you'd like us to forward a copy of this review.

Visit Curtainup's Blog Annex
For a feed to reviews and features as they are posted add http://curtainupnewlinks.blogspot.com to your reader
Curtainup at Facebook . . . Curtainup at Twitter
Subscribe to our FREE email updates: E-mail: esommer@curtainup.comesommer@curtainup.com
put SUBSCRIBE CURTAINUP EMAIL UPDATE in the subject line and your full name and email address in the body of the message. If you can spare a minute, tell us how you came to CurtainUp and from what part of the country.
Slings & Arrows  cover of  new Blu-Ray cover
Slings & Arrows-the complete set

You don't have to be a Shakespeare aficionado to love all 21 episodes of this hilarious and moving Canadian TV series about a fictional Shakespeare Company

Next to Normal
Our Review of the Show

Scottsboro Boys cast album
TheScottsboro Boyse


bloody bloody Andrew Jackson
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson


amazon




©Copyright 2011, Elyse Sommer.
Information from this site may not be reproduced in print or online without specific permission from esommer@curtainup.com