It is the Führer’s 56th birthday, his downfall is imminent, and unease festers in the air of his Berlin Bunker. Stuffed Puppets’ Neville Tranter portrays Adolf’s subservient valet and takes us through a cavalcade of infamous figures, from Eva Braun to Goering and Goebbels, in the puppets he manipulates. Each is a self-obsessed caricature, manifested in a greying, twisted form, their bodies distorted through their own self-importance and bile.
Schicklgruber attempts to be a sensitive satire and in doing so becomes at times confused in its own methodology. At its best it embraces elements of Brechtian theatre to alienate and question. Opening with Tranter on stage as the audience pass him to take their seats, he is aware of his space, the fourth wall is broken; when the lights lower he speaks with the puppet that is to portray Hitler as if both were fellow actors ready to take on their roles. The elegantly evil green monster of death, who interrupts the narrative with sinister attempts at song or magic, is a stroke of genius. Yet as the play progresses we lose sight of this disruptive flow as Tranter attempts to draw us into the fateful conclusion. A sense of poignancy grows through the gravitas of mounting deaths; the satirical overtones are replaced with moments of worry and compassion for the innocent that these demonic figures affect, leaving the political bite to retreat under the weight of a melodramatic narrative.
Tranter is undoubtedly a masterful puppeteer. Sweating profusely through the concentration and life that he brings to his cast, he works tirelessly in expertly crafting a sense of character and comic timing suited to this unique work. iot applications Yet as the play closed his voice had become lost amongst the many he was capable of making. What was he trying to say? We know the Nazi’s were an evil old bunch, but the bite of satire was smothered under a pillow of empathy. Tranter’s characters, caricatures no more, had taken control, telling their story very well but sadly not his.