Taking Sides - Theatre Review A past injustice gains currency in today's troubled times #PicksAndPiques #JohnsonThomas #TheatreReview

 Theatre Play Review

Johnson Thomas

Title: Taking Sides

Language: English

Cast: Sukant Goel, Atul Kumar, Mallika Singh, Kashish Saluja, Kashin Shetty, Richa Jain

Asst.Director, Music, Sound : Vara Raturi

Light Design & Operation: Rahul Joglekar

Production: Vara Raturi, Kanchan Khilare, Rahul Kumar, Naman Seth

Videography: Akash Waghachoure

Volunteers: Vicky Rana, Ranjeet Singh, Nikhil Nagpal, Ganesh Pendurkar

Director: Atul Kumar

Written by: Ronald Harwood

Rating: * * ½

Runtime: 120 mins

Taking Sides, a 1995 play by British playwright Ronald Harwood, directed by Atul Kumar for the Indian Audience, is about the post-war United States denazification investigation of the German conductor and composer Wilhelm Furtwängler on charges of having served the Nazi regime. The play had its first run in Mumbai at an intimate boutique theatre setting, Lé Chakallas Studios, Andheri (W) from 10th February 2022 to 13th February 2022.

 Ronald Harwood’s “Taking Sides,” is about Artists and their art and how it could be seen as facilitating nihilistic ideologies even when one is hard-pressed to stay ‘silent’ in the face of oppression. The point the playwright is striving to underline is that ‘sitting on the fence’ is not an option when hate fueled ideologies wreak murderous havoc on viciously targeted populations. Playing neutral can also be seen as taking sides. Even though the play is set in 1946, it’s a topical theme that has resonance even in the present where we see similar right wing fascist attacks on democratic values and traditions in several countries across the world, including India. The play ensues in the form of a series of interrogations carried out by Steve Arnold in the American-occupied zone of Berlin in 1946.

German conductor (and accused Nazi sympathizer) Wilhelm Furtwangler (1886-1954) played by Atul Kumar, was one of the great conductors of this century. It was his misfortune to have been at the height of his career when the National Socialists came to power. While many of his fellow artists were either forced to leave Germany or emigrated as an act of protest, Furtwangler remained and even helped generate valid papers for several Jewish musicians who faced persecution.

But after the war he was accused of having served the Nazi regime. Furtwangler, who aimed to be a symbol to the entire world of all that is great in culture and music, suddenly found himself being denigrated to the level of a Nazi pawn whose concerts put a high-toned gloss on a murderous regime.  

Major Steve Arnold (played by Sukant Goel), an Army investigator, goes all out to prove that Furtwangler was in cahoots with the Hitler regime. Chosen for his anti-intellectual resistance to anything cultural, he even dares to refer to Furtwangler as a ‘band leader.’ The play opens with a film clip showing thousands of dead bodies being bull-dozed into huge craters, and it brings home to us the horrors that Arnold bore witness to during the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. But his lack of interest in ‘justice’ or ‘facts’ becomes a sore point of the entire two hour debate between right and wrong as seen from the eyes of Arnold, his assistants as well as those defending Furtwangler and his artistic and humane credentials. Furtwangler, who conducted the Berlin Philharmonic during the Nazi years was, indeed, a Hitler favorite but that doesn’t justifiable paint him in villainous hues. Arnold’s belief that Art and politics cannot be kept separate is defended with a lot of noise but it plays out hollow and vacuous because there’s not enough material on record to hold Furtwangler guilty of any crime.

The playwright had already taken sides when he wrote the play, it seems. Harwood’s play seeks to underline the complexity and nuance of art but instead it gives new meaning to victimization and suggests a vengeful taint to perceptions of right and wrong. As the play runs its course it almost appears that Arnold has an axe to grind - one which the audience was not privy to and that Furtwangler was being victimized unduly for doing something that most people in similar positions would do. The film, of the same name, was better received than this play because it managed to flesh out a worthy, rather edgy debate, rich with tension and punctuated with subtleties that resonate. In the film, it was much more difficult to come to any conclusion but in this play it’s all too easy. The debate here seems all too lop-sided and loaded to keep Furtwangler in the clear.

Director Atul Kumar loads up the hollowed end presented by Sukant Goel as Arnold, with lots of sound and fury while Furtwangler, assayed by Kumar himself, gets the graded treatment peaking on emotional high points, as he defends his art and his humanity. The conviction is unfortunately missing from both viewpoints. Goel uses anger and frustration as the cornerstone of his loud and hysterical performance while Kumar is more passionate and measured as Furtwangler. While this play has obvious good intentions it feels rather facile and put on. That’s obviously a failure of the writing, as it is unable to flesh out a potent justification for the entire two hour long debate.

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