By Susan Mulford, Boston and Beyond
Fantasy or Fact? An intense and beautifully performed blend of both. Flat Earth Theatre presents Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award–winning playwright Tony Kushner's (Angels in America) theatrical fable surrounding justice, resistance, and complicity....let's make a choice! The play was based on 'Bertolt Brecht's 1938 work titled The Private Life of the Master Race and is set against the historical backdrop of 1930's Germany as Hitler and his Nazi party edge toward total power. Directed by Greater Boston Stage Company's Director of Education Dori Robinson (Silent Sky), the play is staged in the intimate, Black Box Theatre at the Mosesian Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal St. in Watertown.
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Gathered In an apartment in Berlin to ring in the New Year in 1932, a diverse group of artist friends, Agnes (Lindsay Eagle), Gregor (Noah SImes), Paulinka (Nancy Finn), Annabella (Juliet Bowler) and Vealtninc (Isaiah Plovnick) begin to struggle in response to the frightening realities of the political environment that surrounds them. Almost simultaneously, we are periodically fast forwarded to modern day during the Reagan administration
As a Jewish ex-patriot, Zillah Katz (Kim Klasner), who has taken up residence in the former apartment of the 1930's Agnes Eggling's apartment, rages against Reagan, likening him to Hitler. With the inherent sense of evil growing in the "Demonlogicall" environment the Devil (Matt Arnold) is summoned by Vealtninc and asked to give them his life story which results in a tirade that, "Now I am simply unbelievable...attained invisibility...But,....have preserved my wickedness in pristine condition." By 1933...the party is over...the Communist Party that is and these artists, activists, and idealists grapple with the responsibility of making "fight or flight" choices in a time of vanishing options. Fleeing party members Rosa (Alissa Cordeiro) and Emil (Eric McGowan) decide to restore communism in Germany from another country.
The phantom-like old woman who slips in and out of Agnes's window in unceasing pursuit of food...a symbol of mass starvation...is eerily played by Lizzie Milanovich. There is not a weak performer in the entire cast. The production is solid, soulful, smart, serious and incredibly insightful. The stinging truth from this show is that Hitler created his organization in just six months...but the Nazi party's siege lasted thirteen years. Hailed by the Chicago Tribune as "unabashedly political, thought-provoking, and a little scary," this production stimulates many timely questions about nationalism, resistance, and complacency...tied in with choices. Tickets may be purchased at www.flatearththeatre.com