[NEohioPAL]"Taking Sides" reviewed in the Cleveland Jewish News

[Joy D. Borland]

Drama tackles moral debate about art and politics 

 
Reviewed by FRAN HELLER, Contributing Writer

Can art be separated from the artist who makes it?


To what extent should an artist compromise his principles for the sake of
his art?

These are questions English Jewish playwright Ronald Harwood tackles in
his powerful, thought-provoking drama “Taking Sides.” It is presented by
The Cleveland Stage Company in the Studio Theatre at Tri-C East
Performing Arts Center through Oct. 1.

Part human drama, part moral debate about art, politics and power, the
play could not be timelier.  
 

With the recent revelation by Günter Grass (The Tin Drum), winner of the
Nobel Prize for Literature, that he was a member of the SS at the end of
World War II, the play resonates about the choices some of Germany's most
famous public figures made during the Nazi era. Like the central figure
in “Taking Sides.”

Brian Zoldessy's taut direction and a first-rate professional cast (all
but one of the principals is Actors' Equity) transform the talky piece
into riveting theater.

“Taking Sides” is based on the real life story of Dr. Wilhelm Furtwangler
(1886-1954), one of the great conductors of the 20th century. As maestro
of the Berlin Philharmonic, Furtwangler reached the height of his career
when Hitler came to power in 1933. Unlike other prominent non-Jewish
Germans who fled Nazi Germany in protest, Furtwangler remained. After the
war he was accused of having served the Nazi regime.

Furtwangler came before a Denazification Tribunal in Berlin in 1946 that
cleared him of all charges, but the stigma remained, and he died a broken
man.

The play is set in the American zone of occupied Berlin in 1946.  
 

Major Steven Arnold, an American military investigator, interrogates
Germans accused of complicity with the Nazis. Barred from public life,
these Germans cannot get work unless and until they have been de-Nazified
or cleared of the charges against them.

Arnold, who saw Bergen-Belsen two days after liberation, believes all
Germans are guilty. He's a complex man who hates what the Nazis did, yet
he is blatantly anti-Semitic in his stereotyping of Jews.

Arnold interrogates Furtwangler, a musical genius revered by his
countrymen. The hostile and relentless questioning of the maestro forms
the spine of the play.

Director Zoldessy sets the stage like a boxing ring, in which the actors
are constantly moving and shifting positions. As they circle each other
with their eyes, their body language, and trenchant dialogue, the viewer
darts from one to the other, like watching fighters in a ring.  
 

Sympathies keep shifting sides as the argument escalates. For
Furtwangler, who had the chance to leave Germany but chose to stay, art
is above politics. Yet it was this same man who played at Hitler's
birthday party and spouted anti-Semitic remarks in order to keep his
enviable position.

As the boorish Arnold, Rick Montgomery Jr. baits and bullies Furtwangler
in a deliberate effort to humiliate him.

With a contemptuous sneer, baleful laugh and macho swagger, Arnold
harasses his adversary, calling him a “bandleader” and addressing him by
his first name, an insult to the man's position and fame.

Arnold is drawn in black-and-white as an ugly American and a philistine,
rendering his character as entirely unsympathetic.  
 

The proud Furtwangler, played with a mixture of arrogant defiance and
aloofness by the excellent James Kisicki, remains unbowed. Furtwangler
believes his decision to remain in Germany and continue playing his music
gave hope to the downtrodden German people.

As Arnold's assistant Lieutenant David Wills, Stephen Brockway seethes
with horror and anger at Arnold's brutish line of questioning. Wills is
an American Jew who escaped Germany, but his parents did not. He is torn
between his duty as an American soldier and his affection for the
conductor who inspired his love of music.

The confrontation between a truculent Arnold and a sympathetic Wills
trying to defend Furtwangler sets sparks flying.

Lisa Marie Schueller is Arnold's vulnerable and discomfited secretary
Emmi Straube. Like Wills, Straube is horrified at the contemptible way
the captain treats the revered composer. Schueller's German accent is
unerring.

Maryann Elder is the emotionally unhinged and distraught widow Tamara
Sachs, who also comes to the defense of Furtwangler. Sachs, a non-Jew,
married a gifted Jewish pianist. Furtwangler helped the couple escape to
Paris, where the husband was later arrested and deported. Elder's
hysteria is too shrill at times.

Leslie Feagan couples feigned innocence and cunning as the German
ex-musician turned stool pigeon Helmuth Rode, who saves his own skin by
helping to nail Furtwangler.

Jeremy Dobbins's set includes a backdrop of painted murals that suggest
the smoldering, bombed out ruins of post-war Berlin. Not a detail is
missing, from vintage telephones, typewriter and record player to
costumer Mindi Bonde's period military and civilian clothing.

Using dramatic license, Zoldessy offers a different ending (than the
playwright intended), raising questions about the major's origins and his
motives. You will have to see for yourself and decide.

The Studio Theatre of the Cuyahoga Community College Eastern Campus
Performing Arts Center is at 4250 Richmond Road, Highland Hills.
216-987-2438.