Theatre review: Tom Fool

I can see why prolific German playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz' 1978 play Tom Fool might seem ripe for revival: Its attack on capitalism dehumanising workers is particularly focused on the way it defines the roles and priorities of men and women, a relevant subject when clichés about masculinity are being interrogated. Whether that's enough to make an incredibly dry and dusty play feel worth another look in 2022 is a different story altogether. Otto (Michael Shaeffer) works on the assembly line at a BMW plant. He makes enough money to support his family and afford a few luxuries, but not so much that he doesn't need to keep an eye on the cost of everything, or treat his valuables with care: When the boss borrows his Parker pen and forgets to give it back, it's a matter for sleepless nights and worried rants to his wife for weeks.

These updates on his work woes - including the latest wave of redundancies, increased workload and fear of being next in the firing line - are a regular daily feature for Martha (Anna Francolini), whose domestic tasks extend to massaging her husband's ego.

They both regularly berate their teenage son Ludwig (Jonah Rzeskiewicz) for sitting around all day failing to get a job, but they also stop him from taking the bricklaying apprenticeship he actually wants, and which seems to be all that's available: They're determined that he not end up in the same low-paying worker class as his father, with the lack of respect they associate with manual labour. When they deny his request for money for a festival, 50 marks go missing from Martha's purse, and Otto subjects Ludwig to a humiliating strip-search before throwing him out of the house and trashing the living room.

It's the last straw for Martha, who leaves her husband, finds a sales job, and moves into a furnished room of her own; it's a degree of freedom she hasn't had in a long time, but not ultimately happiness. Diyan Zora's production gets intense performances out of its cast, that might have been moving if the material was more engaging. There's one bleakly accurate speech about the way being reduced to a unit of production makes people only think they exist when they're at work, and their attempts at downtime something they experience at a disconnect - it's a speech I wish I could say I've never related to myself.

But for the most part Kroetz' anti-capitalist message has all the subtlety of Soviet agitprop without the charm, and designer Zoë Hurwitz' attempts to put a fairly full apartment on an in-the-round stage sometimes make for a clumsy production, whose sightlines tend to involve trying to look around lamps and sofas to see what the cast are up to. Which isn't to say all the sights are bad, and I know that my regular readers will both be pleased to see the return, two years almost to the day and in the same venue as the last one, of aFULL FRONTAL MALE NUDITY ALERThowever brief* from Rzeskiewicz. It's a sudden moment of excitement and, in the context, a shocking one, but the fact that it's shortly followed by 10 minutes of Schaeffer and Francolini silently tidying up after Otto smashes the flat says a lot about where the play's priorities lie - and where entertainment comes on that list.

Tom Fool by Franz Xaver Kroetz in a version by Estella Schmid and Anthony Vivis is booking until the 16th of April at the Orange Tree Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: The Other Richard.

*he covers up pretty quickly so don't ask for details, but I can tell you there's no overenthusiastic downstairs shaving going on, which is welcome, if not authentically German†

†and because I've made a rod for my own back as London theatre's resident pervy uncle and I know people will ask: The row of seats directly opposite the entrance and the control booth likely has a sustained rear view, on the other banks you're taking your chances on a flash of front bottom.