Knee-high boots, a wayward German accent and a toothbrush moustache – major alarm bells for any production, but even more so for a one-man show. Especially one that isn’t about Hitler.
Posterkrantz is one big lazy German stereotype, a megalomaniac director whose story this odd and inconsistent play tells. Writer Michael Alamaz never really clarifies what is going on, where the action is taking place, who the audience are, or why Posterkrantz is talking. Sometimes he addresses us as the human beings that we are, sometimes we are baying fans, sometimes he has conversations with invisible people on stage and sometimes with a cameraman made of plastic and polystyrene held up by a very visible yellow stand. There are two other figures on stage, shop-window dummies, one of whom appears to be dressed as Lawrence of Arabia. These are never referred to.
The general impression is that the narrative tells of the rise and fall of Posterkrantz in the world of 1920s cinema. The ‘razor sharp dissection of Hollywood’s Golden Age’ that the marketing copy promises is completely lacking and the conversations that Posterkrantz has with his imaginary friends are staggeringly repetitive, lazily exposited and bland.
Watt’s performance doesn’t go any distance to redeeming the flaccid script; his Posterkrantz is much the same at the beginning as he is at the end. There is potential for lively characterisation which would at least go some way to explaining the insanity of the text, but Watt doesn’t take the character of Posterkranz nearly far enough. The script chops and changes so much that it needs to be met with pace, which is again lacking.
As well as overseeing this jumble, director Tomek Borkowy has made some very bizarre choices that shouldn’t still be in the show. The play opens and closes with Posterkrantz transforming from and into a masked mannequin. In order to cover this transition, bright lights are flashed into the audience’s eyes. However, the temporary and uncomfortable blindness doesn’t last long enough to hide Watt picking up the mannequin and placing it behind the flat.
Late in the play, Watt carries out the model cameraman. The yellow stand gets jammed between the two flats making the exit, so Watt just discards his poor colleague where he is. It’s a rather irresistible metaphor for a production which simply falls flat on its face.
