Reviews 2012
Reviews 2012
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written and directed by Alistair Newton
Ecce Homo Theatre, Next Stage Festival, Factory Theatre Mainspace, Toronto
January 5-15, 2012
Alistair Newton’s hour-long cabaret, Loving the Stranger or how to recognize an invert, is a collage of material about the life and work of German-born Canadian artist Peter Flinsch (1920-2010) interspersed with early German research into homosexuality, anti-gay Nazi propaganda, songs written for or appropriated by queer German cabaret of the 1920s and recreations of radio and television advertisements for the passing of Proposition 8 in California in 2008 that would eliminate the rights of same-sex couples to marry. It is full of fascinating and important information about gay history that ought to be much better known. The problem is that it is presented in such a scattershot way that the timeline of what was happening in Germany when is unclear and Newton seems to satirize those who worked for gay rights as much as those who works to destroy them which is surely not his intention.
Newton says that the show is “Inspired by the life of Peter Flinsch” and if Newton had made Flinsch more clearly the central focus of the play it would be much more successful. Flinsch (well played with a sense of gravity by Hume Baugh) was a set designer, art director and painter. He was born in Leipzig and as was required joined the Hitler Youth and fulfilled his military service requirement by joining the Luftwaffe. In 1942 he was seen kissing another man at a Christmas party and was arrested under the infamous Paragraph 175 of the Third Reich penal code that made homosexuality or anything perceived as homosexual behaviour a crime. Because he was in the military is was not sent to a concentration camp as were other gays, and managed to live to see the Nazis defeated. He emigrated to Canada in 1953, first living in Vancouver and then settling in Montreal, where Newton interviewed him unaware that that would be the last interview Flinsch would ever give.
While we receive the excerpts of Flinsch’s life in chronological order, these excerpts are served up in a mishmash of material from the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s along with the Prop 8 and anti-gay marriage statements of Stephen Harper. The comparison of Paragraph 175 to Proposition 8 is too simplistic. After all, political discourse has become so debased lately that anything the left or the right does like is compared to the Nazis. Anti-sodomy laws still on the books in many U.S states and some of the more outrageous anti-gay pronouncements of current public figure might provide a more effective counterpoint, especially since Proposition 8 was overturned in court in 2010.
Flinsch makes the point that minorities should not take their freedoms for granted since the majority, merely a handful of people in power, can always decide to take them away. Newton could have made this point clear if he portrayed the surprising freedom and acceptance of homosexuals in Berlin in the 1920s with the repression that later set in in the 30s under the Nazis. After all, we focus so much on the eleven years of the Third Reich that we forget the liberalism, far beyond that in the U.S. or Canada, that prevailed earlier. Mischa Spoliansky wrote the first gay anthem “Das lila Lied” (“The Lavender Song”) in 1920 and the first films with gay and lesbian characters like Anders als die Andern (1919) and Mädchen in Uniform (1931) were made in Berlin before other countries would even touch such subject matter.
The first difficulty is that if you don’t pay attention to the dates on the flickering period-style projections designed by Alex Josselyn, you could easily wonder why celebrations of gay freedom (from the 1920s) seem to happen at the same time as repression of gays (in the 1930s and ‘40s). the second difficulty is that Newton gets far too distracted in satirizing the figure of Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935), played as a caricature with unclear diction by Seth Drabinsky. Hirschfeld was one of the first-ever sexologists and founded the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (“Scientific Humanitarian Committee”) in 1897, the first organization in history to campaign for homosexual and transgender rights. The group gathered signatures to overturn Paragraph 175 and Hirschfeld organized the World League for Sexual Reform that held congresses around Europe.
Hirschfeld’s efforts should be thought of as contributing to the liberal attitude towards gays in the 1920s, but Newton’s non-chronological presentation would make you think he was a Nazi. What Newton doesn’t like is that Hirschfeld regarded homosexuality as a disability and thus wanted others to view gays in a more charitable fashion. Of course, this seems patronizing in hindsight, but viewing gayness as an unchangeable disability is certainly a step up from viewing it as a sin or as a curable condition as some people even today believe. Besides, it is wrong to make Hirschfeld appear as a fool as Newton does and thus deny the political action he undertook for the cause.
Except for Baugh as Flinsch and Geoff Stevens in a number of effective roles including an anonymous concentration camp survivor, the Ecce Homo troupe seems to have been chosen for its singing rather than acting ability. Very few can create the superficial aura of wryness that overlies rage that makes German cabaret so potent. As a director Newton needs to make the pacing punchier. Besides Flinsch’s story, the highlight of the show is completely non-verbal. Dancer Laurence Ramsay, nude, performs a set of variations based on Flinsch’s painting “En Vitesse” (2001) with Graham McKelvie’s inventive original choreography, rather like a model moving sensuously from pose to pose, adapted by Sky Fairchild-Waller.
It is good that Newton has brought Flinsch’s story and its background and it is good that he has found a way to blend so many genres in telling that story. It is just too bad that he has also obscured the story with his bricolage of multiple satiric targets. After giving us a taste of what real German cabaret is all about, it was painful to have cast sing Kander and Ebb’s “Cabaret” as an encore, thus trivializing all that went before.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Andrew Bathory and Matt Eger. ©2010 Alistair Newton.
For Tickets, visit www.fringetoronto.com.
2012-01-08
Loving the Stranger or how to recognize an invert