✭✭✭✭✩

by Bertolt Brecht, translated by John Willet,

directed by Esther Jun

Deus XM, SummerWorks Theatre Festival,

The Theatre Centre, Toronto

August 8-16, 2009

A democratically elected government demonizes an ethnic, group, creates a concentration camp, allows dogma to influence science and spies on its own people.  If only this had died out with the Third Reich, but Deus XM knows it hasn’t.  A highly talented, racially diverse cast immediately universalizes Brecht’s 1938 critique of governments that use fear to quash dissent.  Though director Esther Jun stages only nine of the standard 27 vignettes that comprise the play, she fully captures its essence.  The cast works as a true ensemble, but one must mention Marjorie Chan’s outstanding performance as “The Jewish Wife” making her final phone calls before she flees the coming horror.  

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2009-08-10.

Photo: Ben Sanders, Ash Knight, Lisa Li, John Ng, Marjorie Chan, Edwige Jean-Pierre and Hillary Thomson. ©Esther Jun.