Jason Lutes took some 20 years to complete his graphic novel, Berlin. Condensing Lutes’ 550-page magnum opus into theatrical language is no easy feat but Court Theatre has brought it to the stage in a masterful adaptation in a world premiere production.
Directed by Charles Newell and adapted by Mickle Maher, Berlin is set in the waning years of the Weimar Republic. It features a cross-section of Berlin’s population—students, journalists, musicians, protesters–and takes place between 1928 and the rise of Hitler and the National Socialists in 1933.
The city of Berlin has been a favorite of writers and filmmakers for years, of course, from Christopher Isherwood to Bob Fosse, but Lutes’ darkly humorous version—yes, there is humor here—is unlike anything I’ve seen before on stage.
Maher’s dynamic adaptation uses a combination of choreography, live music, and constant movement to create a complicated and impressionistic depiction of a society on the verge of collapse. The adaptation is innovative and unconventional in other ways too: there are no scene breaks or scene changes. Everything flows from moment to moment in one continuous, fluid motion, capturing the energy and vibrancy of the city itself. There is dancing and singing in a nightclub, fighting in the street. A long row of tables is turned into passengers on a train. Characters climb up ladders to make speeches.
Berlin focuses on a dozen characters with actors playing multiple roles and the entire ensemble makes it appear effortless and seamless. An art student, Marthe Müller (a vibrant Raven Whitley), arrives in the city to start a new life. She meets and falls into a relationship with a cynical, and older, journalist, Kurt Severing (an appropriately weary and fedora-wearing Tim Decker) before developing a relationship with a cross-dressing fellow art student Anna Lenke (an ebullient Mo Shipley). An African American jazz musician, Kid Hogan (Terry Bell), gets involved in the machinations of Berlin’s uninhibited nightlife. Meanwhile, a working-class family, the Brauns (Elizabeth Laidlaw, Ellie Duffey, and, in this performance, Christoper Meister) struggles to get by while dealing with the complicated political life that is the Weimar Republic as communists and Nazis clash on the street, culminating in the May 1, 1929, International Workers Day massacre, where 31 people are shot dead. Other characters include a singer (Molly Hernández), a socialite (Kate Collins), a Jewish paperboy (a touching, and empathic, Jack Doherty) and his father (Guy Van Swearingen).
The most remarkable figure is Hitler himself, also played by Laidlaw. We watch, mesmerized, as she dons a long black trench coat and places an officer’s cap on her head. Then she looks into a small round mirror that another character holds and deftly paints a tiny black mustache above her lip before turning toward the microphone spouting venom. It is a stunning, and chilling, moment. It is a moment I won’t soon forget.
Drawing appeals to Marthe because of its very ordinariness but also for its immediacy. She doesn’t have to wait to see the fruits of her labor. It also is a riff on Hitler’s artistic background—he sold paintings to fend off poverty in Vienna before World War I. “I used to draw,” Hitler says to Marthe, which elicits nervous laughter from the audience. Do you see how people draw me, he asks? They give me a “face like a mad chimp.” He wants the world to see him, he wants his fellow artists, to see him as “human.” It is both funny and unsettling. Can a monster be allowed to be human?
John Culbert’s simple but effective set design evokes Berlin’s stark, angular architecture with just a few props—tables, chairs, a ladder, and a microphone. Grief is a key theme. Several metaphors run through the performance: the city as a river, life as a rushing river, the coming and going of trains, the arrival and departure of characters. Lighting is by Keith Parham.
The production features live music from jazz to Josephine Baker. Sound design and compositon is by Mark Messsisng. Costume design is by Jacqueline Firkins. Katie Moshier is stage manager.
There is also an Edward R. Murrow-like, you-are-here Brechtian element. Characters announce, as if reciting a news flash, that four million are unemployed, Nazis have taken over the streets, the stock market has crashed. As Berlin crumbles, Severing notes that the center is “rotting.” Another time he observes that people “just make things up as they go along. It’s like jazz.” Meanwhile, everyone tries to avoid the inevitable—to live their lives as much as they can as long as they can—until it is no longer possible. Or as Anna says, “It’s someone else until it’s you. When does your city become unrecognizable?” Another character remarks, “There are only two sides in the revolution. You have to choose one.”
Berlin is a prescient and timely piece of theater.
Berlin is running through May 18 at Court Theatre, 5535 S. Ellis Ave. Running time is 2.5 hours with one intermission. For tickets and information, see CourtTheatre.org.
For more information on this and other productions, see theatreinchicago.com.
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