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.

United by the potential monetary value of the discovery, the domineering sister and vacuous brother disregard the appalled responses of Philipp’s horrified Jewish wife (Jenna Augen) and the tetanus-infected gibberings of Fabian (Gunnar Cauthery), Nichola’s ineffectual partner to call in a weirdly tight-laced, Germanic art expert (Jane Horrocks). With the artist supposedly verified, only the painting’s provenance has to be unearthed for big bucks. 

As the brother and sister’s mercenary reconstruction of their family history to establish the painting’s provenance tear their confused marriages apart, their pragmatic, self-interested relationship to the past is attacked by Judith whose passionate arguments about Nazi atrocities are flung back at her with biting topical refences to Palestine.

Veering dramatically between farce and realism, with elements of Wagnerian opera, absurdism, musicals and horror including a comically unsettling, exotic dance interlude from the figure who turns up later as a camp, Naziphile art collector (Angus Wright), Mayenburg’s play constantly challenges the audience, dressing his serious themes in comic attire.

Director Patrick Marber makes the most of his outstanding cast as the dark satire plays out to its farcical conclusion. The deft, sometimes bizarre and unpredictable changes of mood, style and pace keep the audience on their toes, while Anna Fleischle’s atmospheric set is a reminder of the wasteful destruction of the past and a telling background to the increasingly outrageous behaviour of the unscrupulous siblings.

The shifts between tense arguments, outright humour and farce are so abrupt that I imagine audiences might respond quite differently on consecutive nights, but I challenge anyone not to be engrossed and entertained by the Young Vic’s latest stimulating production. 

Runs until April 20. Box office: (020) 7922-2922, youngvic.org.