‘The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui’ at City Garage
The essentials: Bertolt Brecht’s 1941 satire, which he wrote while in exile from Germany and waiting for an American visa, has been described as “the American gangster movie meets Richard III.” The play’s account of a buffoonish, small-time Chicago racketeer who takes over the city’s cauliflower market is a thinly veiled and often savage parody of Hitler’s rise to power.
Why this? As Charles Isherwood wrote in Variety about a 2002 New York production, “ ‘Arturo Ui’ paints a blunt picture of a smug society easily corrupted and ultimately overtaken by a low-level hoodlum and his gang of thugs.” Does this sound at all familiar? Is it too soon? Or maybe too late? City Garage, known for daring, highly stylized sociopolitical theater, is the ideal local company to revive this infrequently done, disturbingly timely play.
Details: City Garage, Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Ave., Building T1, San Monica. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends Aug. 12. $20 and $25. (310) 453-9939 or www.citygarage.org