{"id":54347,"date":"2023-09-10T08:11:10","date_gmt":"2023-09-10T05:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=54347"},"modified":"2023-09-10T08:11:10","modified_gmt":"2023-09-10T05:11:10","slug":"khan-theatre-the-resistible-rise-of-arturo-ui","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=54347","title":{"rendered":"Khan Theatre: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Khan Theatre: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui\/Photo: Radi Rubinstein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Khan Theatre presents Bertolt Brecht\u2019s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui<\/em> in a compelling production, directed by Udi Ben Moshe, with a new translation to Hebrew by Yotam Gotel. Brecht\u2019s play is a satiric parable of the rise of Adolf Hitler, written in 1941, when Brecht was in Finland, awaiting a visa to enter the United States. The play focuses on Arturo Ui, a Chicago gangster who expands his reach and impact by gaining control over the vegetable market. As written, each character and event in Brecht\u2019s play had its parallel in the Nazi Party\u2019s rise to power in Germany. In the current production the emphasis on these parallels has been eased, giving the play a more contemporary feel and relevance to the current political climate. The entire ensemble delivers a polished and incisive performance, elegantly portraying the characters with comic precision that never blurs the play\u2019s ultimately chilling message.<\/p>\n

The play opens with an Announcer (Yehoyachin Friedlander), impeccably dressed in suit and tie, who explains in a calm demeanor that this will be a story about criminals, deception, bribes, and murders. As he introduces the characters, their image appears larger than life on the gigantic video screen behind him. The video art functions as an element of the play throughout, in different ways, comic at times, ominous at others, and effectively bringing the play into 2023, when screens are ubiquitous and fake news an inevitable part of daily life.<\/p>\n

Set in Chicago, the vegetable market is in trouble and needs a loan to pull through, but Mayor Dogsborough (Arie Tcherner) refuses. They figure out a way to get the money they need, by exploiting the vulnerability of one of their own \u2013 Fish, and Dogsborough\u2019s greed. And that is the opening small time gangster Arturo Ui needs to get a foot in the door. Erez Shafrir is spectacular as the mercurial Arturo, capable of shifting tone in an instant, a consummate actor who will do anything to get ahead. As the play begins, he\u2019s struggling, complaining to his fellow gangster Ernesto Roma (Vitali Friedland) that no one respects him. Friedland invests Roma with a charm tempered by an undercurrent of violence, together with Arturo \u2013 it\u2019s a winning team, as they balk at nothing. The path of corruption is a slippery slope, and once a person has begun to slide, it\u2019s hard to stop, much less climb back up to the moral high ground. Arie Tcherner provides a poignant moment as Dogsborough falls apart, realizing how he has compromised himself through his own greed.<\/p>\n

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Arturo Ui (Erez Shafrir) and Ernesto Roma (Vitali Friedland) – Khan Theatre\/Photo: Radi Rubinstein<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As Arturo and his gang gain control over the vegetable union, Arturo wisely seeks to remake his image as a leader. In a very funny scene, he takes instruction from an aging, disabled actor (Yehoyachin Friedlander) on how to stand, walk, and make speeches. In his walk there is a trace of mocking the Nazi goose step, and perhaps Brecht referencing Charlie Chaplin\u2019s The Great Dictator (1940), but there is a fine restraint in the physical comedy, and it never slips from the comic to the cartoonish. One can also see Brecht\u2019s admiration for Shakespeare in several references which have been retained in this production. Arturo practices public speaking reading a few lines from Marc Antony\u2019s eulogy of Julius Caesar, and later there is a reference to Macbeth\u2019s vision of Banquo\u2019s ghost. Yet the most powerful image is one that is presented most boldly and effectively, evoking Act I, scene ii from Richard III, and emphasizing the similarities between Arturo and Richard as great manipulators \u2013 Shafrir is so utterly and wonderfully slick and immoral. As his influence and control increase, Arturo alters his wardrobe as well, exchanging his blue track suit for a pin-stripe blazer, a subtle yet noted shift towards external respectability. His cronies soon follow his sartorial lead.<\/p>\n

As Arturo exploits the greed, moral weakness, and fear of those around him he and his cronies grow ever more powerful, yet with dishonesty and deception as the code of behavior, they must inevitably distrust and fear one another as well, and the violence mounts. Yet the clever and fast-paced dialogue, as well as the physical comedy keeps the tone light, even when depicting harsh events. When Nir Ron appears in court as Hook, recanting his testimony at the witness stand with his glasses askew and his hair a mess, one cannot help but smile, even as one is aware of the bullying and corruption his appearance implies. The rendition of the play in Hebrew, and the choice of particular phrases, such as \u201cthere is no governance\u201d (\u05d0\u05d9\u05df \u05de\u05e9\u05d9\u05dc\u05d5\u05ea \u2013 ein meshilut) marks the play with a sense of the current political scene in Israel, and a warning for our own times, albeit a very entertaining one.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui<\/p>\n

By Bertolt Brecht<\/p>\n

Directed and adapted by Udi Ben Moshe<\/p>\n

Hebrew translation: Yotam Gotal<\/p>\n

Set Design: Svetlana Breger; Costume Design: Elena Kelrich; Music: Boris Malkovsky; Lighting Design: Roni Cohen; Video Art: Daniella Bella Candleshine; Cast (in order of appearance): Yehoyachin Friedlander \u2013 Announcer, Fish, Actor, Ignatius Dullfeet; Nir Ron \u2013 Clark, Bowl, Hook; Gal Zak \u2013 Butcher, Guiseppe Givola; Shalev Gelber \u2013 Flake, Emmanuel Giri; Arie Tcherner \u2013 Old Dogsborough; Schahar Netz \u2013 Young Dogsborough, A defendant; Erez Shafrir \u2013 Arturo Ui; Vitali Friedland \u2013 Ernesto Roma; Nitsan Levartovsky \u2013 O\u2019Casey, an investigator, Betty Dullfeet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Khan Theatre presents Bertolt Brecht\u2019s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui in a compelling production, directed by Udi Ben Moshe, with a new translation to Hebrew by Yotam Gotel. Brecht\u2019s play is a satiric parable of the rise of Adolf Hitler, written in 1941, when Brecht was in Finland, awaiting a visa to enter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":54348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[390,389,207,106,105],"class_list":["post-54347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theater","tag-bertolt-brecht","tag-khan-theatre","tag-satire","tag-theater","tag-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/54348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}