East of Berlin
By Hannah Moscovitch
Directed by Alisa Palmer
Featuring Diana Donnelly, Paul Dunn, Brendan Gall
Tarragon Theatre Extra Space until February 1, 2009
By Matt McGeachy
There is usually a moment in each young man’s life where he learns something about his father that forever changes the man’s perception of him; instantly, dad goes from being a God-like figure or archetype to being a mortal, flawed man. This is a natural part of growing up. For most of us, however, this does not include discovering that our fathers were Nazi war criminals on the run for heinous crimes committed at Auschwitz during the Second World War. Rudi Klausner, played excellently — perhaps definitively — by Brendan Gall, discovers exactly this in Hannah Moscovitch’s East of Berlin, currently being remounted at Tarragon Theatre.
The show opens outside his father’s study at their home in Paraguay, where they have been hiding from Nazi hunters courtesy of Operation Reinhard, a fictional ODESSA-like organization that aids and shelters former Nazis from prosecution. (Historically, Operation Reinhard was a component of the Final Solution designed to kill Jews who had been in government, mainly at Polish camps.) The story unfolds as a series of memories about Rudi’s discovery of his father’s past.
Hermann (Paul Dunn), a smart but cynical classmate of Rudi’s at their German school in Paraguay, reveals the truth about Rudi’s father: he was a Nazi doctor at Auschwitz responsible for the medical experimentation on Jewish prisoners. When Rudi discovers this, he confronts his father and, to distance himself from the heinous past, enters a homosexual relationship with Hermann to cope. Eventually, his father walks in on the two boys and Rudi leaves Paraguay and travels back to West Berlin, where he begins medical training. Dunn’s portrayal of Hermann perfectly mixes the character’s cynicism with empathy and was a pleasure to watch.
While researching his father’s past at the German Archives, he meets a young American Jew, Sarah, and falls in love. Diana Donnelly as Sarah occasionally lapses into the stereotype of the neurotic New York Jew, but my suspicion is that this has more to do with the script than Donnelly’s portrayal.
Sarah’s mother was a survivor; Rudi lies to her about his father’s past and about his father’s present: he says his parents died in a car accident years ago. Eventually Sarah become pregnant and the two plan to marry, but Sarah discovers the truth about Rudi’s father and threatens to call the wedding off unless he turns his father in to the Mossad.
Suddenly transported back to the present, we rejoin Rudi outside his father’s study. Unable to cope with his love for Sarah and the simultaneous love and hatred he feels for his father, Rudi tragically commits suicide.
Moscovitch’s story manages to reflect on personal guilt and love and to challenge the audience into making distinctions between atrocious acts and the people who commit them. Many times throughout Rudi reminds us that his father was a good father: they read stories, played games. To him, dad was just dad until he found out the truth about his horrible past. Rudi’s direct appeals to the audience were engaging and challenging for us.
Moscovitch’s script, deftly handled by director Alisa Palmer’s skillful staging, allowed the actors to behave very naturally; it never felt epic despite the play’s heavy subject matter. Camellia Koo’s set was gorgeous and versatile.
If you missed it the first time around, do yourself a favour: see East of Berlin now. It’s a chance to witness one of the early works of a playwright who will certainly become a part of Canadian theatre history.
