Review: Tattoo

Blog notes: My review of Tattoo which is posted below didn't have the space to fully expand on the intricacy and complexity of this play.

The timing of the production cannot be underestimated - just today I see that Josef Fritzl will appear in an Austrian court to face trial. Despite the timing, this play is an historical piece which was first written and produced in 1992 just after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It's about reunification and German guilt, Hitler's willing executioners, about collective forgetfulness... It's about 'keeping it in the family'.

The parallels with Fritzl are unnerving. The silence of the mother, the neighbours, the entire town. Did they know? Did anyone try to do anything?

No doubt, we won't find out any of this from the trial.

Interestingly, debates about this theme have also been raised around the release of the new Kate Winslet film The Reader and there was a fascinating article in The Australian by Tim Bower which argues that "sixty years after the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals and when nearly all the murderers are dead, the truth about Germany's reintroduction of slavery and persecution into 20th-century Europe has become blurred by convenient myths".

It's a fascinating discussion which directly correlates with what this play is screaming out.

Despite the relevancy it's a real shame that the director didn't use a better translation. I learnt of the importance of good, thorough and relevant translations while studying theatre directing in Slovenia all those years ago.

You can hear the German in the text and you can hear where words don't fit. Even the names of the characters are affected by translation and chosen quite deliberately. To my ear 'Dog Face Julie' doesn't sound quite right and the fact that the youngest and more unruly daughter is called Lulu is loaded with over one hundred years of Germanic literature history.

Dramatically, such an ordinary translation puts up a wall between the audience and the action. Regardless, this is a very interesting and timely piece.

Review as published in yesterday's Sun-Herald.


Tattoo
Griffin Independent, Stables Theatre
Until 28 March
Tickets $26-$30
Bookings (02) 8002 4772
Critic’s Rating 6/10


Less than a year ago, Austrian father Josef Fritzl made headlines when it was discovered he had locked up and abused his daughter for 24 years.

The world was shocked. For most people, family represents what should be a sanctuary - if you look through the eyes of the family, you look through the eyes of the world.

Tattoo, by German playwright Dea Loher, portrays a family corrupted by the actions of a father, Oven-Wolf (David Ritchie), who is sexually abusing his eldest daughter, Anita (Sophie Kelly).

The mother of the family, Dog Face Julie (Sandra Eldridge), just looks on as a silent witness while nervously scratching away at her arms, head and neck. When a local flower shop boy (Simon Corfield) learns of the abuse he takes Anita away, forcing the abuser to turn on his youngest daughter, Lulu (Megan Drury).

Director Rochelle Whyte has created a Doll’s House space straight out of a story book. But it’s a story book which is clinical and white against the dark backdrop of Oven-Wolf’s heinous acts.

As a parable for the wider world it is disturbing, showing that the legacy and repercussions of mistakes and evil will go on if good people do nothing.

The actors deliver powerful caricatures in the grim fairytale world but they don’t go into deeper moments of sincerity to allow the harsh reality of these true stories to come through.

After all, fairy tales are at their most powerful when you see reflections of your world.