Theatreguide.London
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The Theatreguide.London Review
Olga's
Room
Arcola
Theatre January 2013
For decades, Olga Benario has been held up as the model female revolutionary: her short life was dominated by socialist fervour and a brief, passionate love affair, and ended at the hands of the Nazis in 1942. There have been biographies, films, even operas about Benario, and 'Olga's Room' is the latest in line: the English language premiere of Dea Loher's acclaimed 'Olga's Raum', from 1992.
Unfortunately, in this messy
production by Speaking in Tongues Theatre Company it is difficult to see
the spark that must have been in the original production, which shot Loher
to lasting success as a playwright in Germany.
There are too many problems here for it to be evident who is most at fault
in this brutal, yet curiously unmoving biography of Olga's time in a
Brazilian prison. The cast of four are certainly not helped by David
Tushingham's clunky translation, filled with exchanges that fall far of
naturalism but are not quite stylised enough for this to seem deliberate.
And Samuel Miller's unimaginative, by-the-numbers direction does little to
elevate the production into anything greater than the sum of its
lacklustre parts.
The production suffers additionally from the fact that its two strongest
performances are also its most underused. Olga's cellmates are perhaps the
most interesting element in what should have been a deeply compelling
story all round; little is seen of them, but Sheena May manages to imbue
seventeen-year-old Genny with quiet dignity and even a little humour,
while Ceridwen Smith is at first steely, then irreparably broken as Ana.
The second act is stronger than the first, at its strongest when the
cellmates share the stage, but unfortunately they feature very little in
the first, as it has something of a preoccupation with the prison's
torturer, Filinto Muller, played with hand-rubbing glee by Pete
Collis.
Muller is apparently a
defector from the socialist party, who left to seek power in the regime,
but this intriguing backstory is largely neglected in favour of a series
of oddly sexualised interrogation scenes, where he seems to be seeking
absolutely no information at all, and simply desires to have the female
prisoners bound and at his mercy.
As neither the repercussions behind the heavily implied sexual violence
nor its origins are actually discussed in any depth, it feels
sensationalised, pointless and extremely tasteless. This is torture for
titillation, to shock, it is beautiful women silent in chairs while a
laughing man holds a blade to their skin: it feels out of place and deeply
gratuitous in what should be a play about one woman's strength, courage
and defiance. These are shock tactics and they shock for all the wrong
reasons.
Finally, it is Olga who feels truly missing from this production, the real
Olga, as Bethan Clark's strangely unemotive central performance lacks
power and conveys little of the passion that drove Benario to take the
risks she took, risks that led to her imprisonment and death. A play that
should show us the soul of a revolutionary fails to show us much more than
her subjugation, in spite of its best intentions.
Lauren Mooney
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Review - Olga's Room - Arcola Theatre 2013