Actor, Musician, Asst. Sound Tech โข 2022
Having fled Germany in 1933, Bertolt Brecht turned to plays and poetry to warn the world of the political dangers he had witnessed first-hand.
He recast Hitler as Arturo Ui, a Chicago gangster who rises from obscurity to take over the cauliflower cartels, gain charisma and followers, supplant the mayor, and eventually murder most of his inner circle.
I was very glad to re-join Fresh Theatre in the Backyard (this time as a performer) for their production in 2022. The show effectively counterbalanced the undeniably dark tone with physical humour and a live band playing swing covers of rock and pop songs (in the style of Postmodern Jukebox).
I joined in on the viola for Welcome to the Jungle and Smooth Criminal, in addition to playing Mayor Dogsborough (President von Hindenburg), newsman Ignatius Dulfeet (Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss), and the Defence Counsel in the cabbage warehouse (Reichstag) fire trial.
In his genre of ‘epic’ theatre, Brecht never shies away from explicitly addressing the audience with what he means and what they should take away. While he deliberately describes Arturo Ui’s rise as ‘resistible’, the play’s final lines hang heavier today in 2025:
The world was almost won by such an ape!
The nations put him where his kind belong.
But don’t rejoice too soon at your escape –
The womb he crawled from is still going strong.
Collaborators
Andrew Bacaller
Musical Director
James Cutler
Co-Director
Shaz Mullens
Co-Director