ADOLF – THEATRE AGAINST RACISM

Pip Utton – England

The Führer's bunker, April 1945... the air is thick with betrayal as Hitler awaits the inevitable collapse of Berlin... There is a curiosity, for all who have witnessed or learned about this historical monster, for some insight into the man, 'Adolf Hitler'. The desire to check, at first hand one's own integrity; could I...would I be won over to this mans vision for Europe? The German people were, and the 'machine' that this ideology created became the most terrible holocaust the world has ever seen. But how? What was it that this man said, that any man could say, that would lead a whole Christian nation to megalomania and genocide? You can watch old German newsreels, or read another book or two but that won't help much . What is needed is to be transported back to 1930's-40's Germany and attend a Hitler rally, or better still a personal interview with the Führer. Stand in front of the man himself, hear his voice, see his sweat, feel his passion. For over an hour Pip Utton is Adolf Hitler. The transformation is complete, from the opening moment you are in Hitler's presence. In the last 15 minutes of the play he pulls a stunning theatrical trick on his audience by in turn playing, apparently, himself, then an increasingly right wing figure who seems to be an extension of himself, and finally returning to the character of Hitler. The author and actor Pip Utton is concerned not only with Nazism but with the wider dangers of populism, of undemocratic measures introduced by means of an appeal to a manufactured 'public opinion'.

Duration: 75 minutes (without a break)

Language: English

Tuesday, 04.03., 18.00, DIE PUMPE