Sprawling Berlin at the Court

Mickle Maher’s eagerly awaited world premiere adaptation of the 22 graphic novel series Berlin by Jason Lutes now on at University of Chicago’s Court Theatre opened with an extension, so it's a hot ticket.  And well it should be: if you have been feeling like these times are a deja vu of the 1930’s authoritarian regimes, watching this fast paced, endlessly in motion epic play will not calm your nerves. In fact, watching newspaper editors be jailed and queer people be rounded up, even while this play’s characters say that’s not about me, or they would never– and then they do–it may send you out of the theatre in a panic attack.

The plot is complex, but the short version is a young woman, Marthe,(played with passion by Raven Whitely) from Cologne heads to the big city Berlin after WW1 to study art in the heady creative Wiemar era between the wars. She makes art, has lovers and adventures set against the backdrop of the rise of the Nazi party. The show ends with each character noting how they die which includes only a few surviving the war, including the Jewish newspaper boy (gangly Jack Doherty)whose parents ship him to family in New York and he grows up to be a history professor at Northwestern. 

Director Charles Newell has pulled together a masterful ensemble of only a dozen actors to play all of the characters: it can get confusing and I almost needed a scorecard. Elizabeth Laidlaw is absolutely magnificent as the protective mother and worker Gudrun Braun who is killed protesting and who then plays Hitler. Ellie Duffey’s Silvia Braun, the scrappy survival child raised in poverty between the wars channels the spirit of resistance. Brandon Ruiter is compelling as the ghost of Marthe’s brother, Theo, killed in the first world war. He wordlessly haunts the evening. 

John Culbert’s brooding set and Jaqueline Firkins’ period costumes helped paint a stylish picture of a world that would be blown to bits. 

The characters and the dialogue continue to reference how the past influences the future, how time is a river you fall into, and a wish that a character might go back and do something differently so as to influence the future that came about. Marthe makes a portrait of an audience member throughout the show, and tells them to stay very still (something the characters never do!)and not to cry as the evening spools out. All of this serves as a warning, perhaps.  As we sit in a theatre that stands not far from the exact spot where the atom bomb was invented, one thinks that Maher and Lutes are exhorting us to pay attention, and to alter the course of the river that we are being washed along in right now. 

There is so much to take in for the two and a half hours of this play.  It is absolutely jam packed with plot lines, events both historical and fictional all rolling by at a pace that leaves you breathless: I feel like I need to see it again to really comprehend all that it has to offer. Luckily,  I have a bit of time:  Berlin is playing at The Court Theatre 5535 South Ellis Avenue in Chicago’s Hyde Park Wednesdays through Sundays until May 18th, 2025.  There are a host of companion activities to go along with this pithy piece. For tickets and info go to https://www.courttheatre.org/season-tickets/2024-2025-season/berlin/

Photo by Michael Brosilow

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