Black day has silver lining
THEATRE
Frau Welt
Assembly Rooms (Venue 20) Like a glittering black spider lurking in the shadows, she steps into the spotlight, her face a grotesque mix of joy and sadness, and takes her bow. The end of Frau Welt’s time on stage forms the start of what initially seems like a familiar one-woman/drag show, lip-syncing along to big tunes. Actually, however, this is a far more sophisticated piece of storytelling, about broken dreams and hearts on the 1930s Berlin cabaret scene, and how to become the person you have the potential within yourself to be.
With the free-flowing noir-esque narration, this play has the gothic style of a Tim Burton movie, the mysterious mood of an Alfred Hitchcock film, and some ingenious audience participation using the subtext of silent cinema. While there are also plenty of innuendos and catty asides, the rich repertoire of references make our towering heroine’s struggles both moving and funny.
The storyline of a man playing a woman mourning the loss of her man to another man creates a delicious irony, and we follow our at times bitter, but at others battleworn, narrator as she tries to carve out a life of theatrical glamour – but instead ends up involved in epic political dramas.
A later period of the elusive Frau Welt’s life, in which she plays second fiddle to Angela Lansbury, makes plain what it feels like understudy a more famous person. For this section, she worked brilliantly with an audience member.
Peter Clements somehow manages to seem heartbreakingly real as the man behind Frau Welt’s mask – and when he strips this mask away at the end, he put the seal on an altogether engaging and rewarding hour.
SALLY STOTT
Until 25 August. Today 8:35pm.