MANN IST MANN
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Written in 1926 by Bertolt Brecht and an unacknowledged team of coauthors led by Brecht’s assistant Elisabeth Hauptmann, and offered here in Gerhard Nellhaus’s translation, Mann Ist Mann is a hell of a hard play to pull off, which makes Famous Door’s brash and tasty production even more impressive. It’s got to be funny and thoughtful, extravagant and subtle, coarse and sensitive all at the same time–as it is here. Inspired by the empire-promoting fiction of Rudyard Kipling, the story concerns a weakling who’s turned into a war hero, a classic theme that the play turns upside down to offer a disturbing blueprint for reshaping the individual to the purposes of a dehumanizing society. Often categorized as an antiwar statement–and it is that in part–Mann Ist Mann is less a protest than a diagnosis of industrial civilization, a world in which the individuality of ever-more-disposable human beings is increasingly endangered.
Galy Gay, a sweet-natured softie who can’t say no, joins the British army as a joke, then is coerced into staying through a disorienting combination of enticements and intimidations. Outfitted with another soldier’s identity, Galy is transformed into a ruthless killing machine, ready to sink his teeth into the enemy’s neck. Under his new name of Jeraiah Jip, he finishes the play by delivering a funeral oration over the coffin of one Galy Gay, the last individual.
Rose’s sweet-spirited, beautifully modulated clowning is effectively offset by the harshness of the rest of the fine ensemble, which includes Steve Key as the pagoda proprietor Wang, Patrick New as the Brit twit whom Galy replaces, Dan Rivkin as the psychotically disciplined Bloody Five, and Elaine Rivkin as Begbick, a proto Mother Courage. Paul Dessau’s caustic songs (with what sounded like some uncredited contributions by Kurt Weill) acquire a ska flavor from the piano-saxophone-drums combo led by musical director James Schneider. The result is rich, raw, sharp, funny, and scary.
