DENNIS BROE surveys the offerings made at Series Mania Festival
Nachtland
Young Vic, London
THIS thought-provoking and highly entertaining play is startlingly original. Employing a broad range of dramatic styles, Marius Von Mayenburg’s German play tackles a range of political and social issues linked by a discussion on the value of art and its relationship to the observer.
Nicola (Dorothea Myer-Bennett) and Philipp (John Heffernan) are in the process of clearing out the worthless contents from the crumbling home of their recently deceased father when they come across a 1920s Viennese watercolour.
Their amusing, childish bickering switches to an argument on the painting’s subject and style before their spouses discover that the picture might have been painted by Adolf Hitler.
MARY CONWAY is spellbound by superb performances in Arthur Miller’s study of the social and personal stress brought about by Nazi Germany’s Kristallnacht
MARY CONWAY becomes impatient with the intellectual self-indulgence of Tom Stoppard in a production that is, nevertheless, total class
JAN WOOLF is beguiled by the tempting notion that Freud psychoanalysed Hitler in a comedy that explores the vulnerability of a damaged individual
SIMON PARSONS is taken by a thought provoking and intelligent play performed with great sensitivity



