Doing a piece about two different religions, a holocaust and advertising the majority of your company as intellectually disabled is certainly a way to stir up some controversy, and the packed house of the opening night of Ganesh Verses the Third Reich, at Stratford Circus, is proof that we love a scandal.
The performance is the most recent project of Australian company BacktoBack Theatre and is being presented as past of the LIFT Festival.
The company is built primarily from actors with intellectual disabilities and this is well advertised. But it seems unfair to give any leniency for this, after all, this is paid and professional theatre, and in any case, the level of acting here is far from needing any excuses.
The main story is exactly what it says in the title, a tale of Ganesh travelling across Asia and Europe to take on Hitler in Berlin and claim back the swastika, but the underlying and much more interesting tale is sandwiched between the scenes with the actors forming Brecht style ‘offstage’ and ‘in rehearsal’ re-enacted interactions.
It’s during these moments that the real characters live, flourish, and entertain us as an audience.
One such character is the quick-witted Simon Laherty, who plays not only Hitler for the final scene, but also Levi the Jew throughout. His interactions as the Jew are well timed and carefully considered leading to several moments of uncontrolled laughter from the audience. His entire stage presence is captivating and he steals the show on more than one occasion.
But this show is a mixed bag both emotionally and in tempo. One minute we are in fits of laughter and the next we are close to tears, culminating in a beautiful explosion of energy and passion that slowly winds down into a precise and well-crafted physical and emotional ending to the piece.
Mark Deans and David Woods give the show two more crowning moments in the form of their beautifully sensitive duologues, but the ensemble clearly supportive throughout these scenes. The entire production is undeniably a team effort.
The clever use of basic scenery and costumes is well crafted, even if the microphone under the Ganesh mask becomes muffled and slightly irritating. The use of projections, shadows and curtains to create a train was another one of the clever and captivating moments and that this scene took place entirely in German was in some ways more engrossing than understanding the dialogue fluently. Some peculiar staging choices lead to pieces of action being missed by the audience and I would definitely recommend sitting closer to the front so not to miss some of the finer details of the work, but in general, the honest performances overshadow any technical or staging quips.
At one hour and forty minutes with no interval, this performance is by no means a small feat. The action on stage runs with such a carefully crafted tempo that, as an audience, we don’t lose focus for any more than a minute and as soon as the performers shake off a rocky start and settle into a more confident flow, the piece seems to drive itself in a very calm and collected way and becomes a pleasure to watch.
LIFT is about "shining a light onto stories of the world". Ganesh Vs the Third Reich is a glowing example of Australia's contribution to world theatre.
