Photo by Rüdiger Glatz.
Man is Man by Manfred Karge – Royal Court Theatre, London
Tilda Swinton’s return to the Royal Court would be a serious theatrical event, even if she weren’t appearing in the play she performed on her last stage appearance – also at the Royal Court, in 1988. Since then, she has become a film star of remarkable character and credibility, building on her early fringe work and her artistic relationship with Derek Jarman to craft an entirely individual career. There is no doubting her star quality on screen, but what is it like to return to live theatre after a 38 year absence? It is hard to think of another actor who has taken on a challenge quite like this.
Manfred Karge’s play is an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht’s Mann ist Mann, and is a one woman show – but the woman in question spend most of the night impersonating a man. Swinton plays Ella Gericke, whose husband Max is a crane operator in a 1930s German city. When he dies of cancer, a burial error means she can assume his identity and live as a man, experiencing the wild turmoil of mid-20th century Germany. In a string vest and Y-fronts, face crusted in white, Swinton roams her apartment telling her story. The play has undergone several updates since its première, not least when the Berlin Wall fell a year later. Now, it continues up to the present day (although this removes Ella out of any realistic timeline), to the point where the megaphones are out again and the menacing rise of AfD threatens to bring events full circle.
Directed by Stephen Unwin, who was also in charge of the 1988 production, this is a real reunion and, it has to be said, something of a throwback. It feels as though we are watching alternative theatre from a different era, which is indeed the case. It is easy to see the influence Man Is Man must have had first time around, but repeating the show does not have the same impact. The moral ambiguity of Ella, who goes with the flow and does what she must to survive, including becoming an SA prison guard, is still unsettling and politically challenging. The gender fluidity and the deeply unglamorous costumes and setting (by the original designer Bunny Christie) seem foundational for much subsequent fringe work during the 1980s and 1990s. The use of an onstage microphone to deliver speeches, and the flinging of paint over the back wall of the set, are examples of techniques that were clearly ahead of their time – but which we have seen many times since. The motivation for the revival – to highlight disturbing political developments in Germany – is laudable, but the production seems too much of an archival exercise, fascinating to students of theatre but much less urgent than it should be.
The other issue is, unfortunately, Tilda Swinton herself. She is fully committed and invested in a lengthy solo role, but she does not have the weight as a live performer fill the auditorium. Vocally, she is underpowered and would have benefited from being mic-ed up for the benefit of the back row. Her performance also lacks variation, undermining the intense drama of the events she describes. She uses a South London-esque whine throughout, which is quite a transformation, but does not leave her room to pitch or vary her performance. As a result, it lacks pacing and has neither peaks or troughs. The audience is always waiting for the moment that will grab them and draw them into the play, but it never quite happens. the result is an evening that fails to match up to its considerable promise.
