BWW Reviews: Plewman is Great, but Pencil-Thin THE LAST MOUSTACHE Needs More Bristle

Adolf Hitler is no stranger to the post-modern trend of historiographic meta-fiction. Stephen Fry, for example, had a crack at the Hitler story in his novel, Making History, while Robert Harris cooks up an alternative history in Fatherland in which the Hitler leads the Nazis to victory. Hitler's life has been mined for drama in films like HITLER: THE LAST TEN DAYS, with Alec Guinness playing the titular role, and his persona employed as a comic device in Mel Brooks's THE PRODUCERS. Jeffrey Boam and Tom Stoppard even managed to organise a meeting between der Führer and Indiana Jones in the latter's last crusade. For the past couple of years, South African audiences have been able to number Greg Viljoen's THE LAST MOUSTACHE amongst those other more or less speculative works. Following successful in runs at the National Arts Festival, the Market Theatre and the Fringe at the Joburg Theatre, the opening of the show at the Baxter Theatre last week was an opportunity for Capetonians to see what all the fuss was about.

As it turns out, that fuss has mostly to do with Tim Plewman's magnificent performance as Heiner Schmidt, an actor hired to impersonate Hitler, who the play speculates died much earlier in the war than history would have us believe. Plewman is a resourceful actor who draws upon a diverse range of skills and his wealth of experience to make Schmidt a sympathetic character and to draw the audience into the world of the play. Even when the material falters, which it does often and occasionally spectacularly, Plewman's performance keeps THE LAST MOUSTACHE driving forward to its next joke or melodramatic revelation. But when Schmidt starts playing charades with the audience in the second half of the piece, THE LAST MOUSTACHE suddenly starts to feel like a Carol Burnett skit that has been going on for at least half an hour too long.

Perhaps that is an unfair comparison, for THE LAST MOUSTACHE is not all parody. There is a deeply sinister through line to the piece involving Schmidt's fate as the allies close in on Berlin. Hitler's death in Führerbunker needs to be filmed as the final bow of the Nazi propaganda machine, after which Schmidt has been promised an easy exile in South America. As Schmidt waits for instructions from the Reich's Minister Dr Joseph Goebbels in his 'rehearsal bunker', one might expect him to spiral out of control. This psychological space seems as though it should be fertile ground for satire and comedy. Had Viljoen organically developed Schmidt's comic antics in THE LAST MOUSTACHE out from that point of origin, the piece feel more integrated and less contrived. There are several times when a sequence feels as though it has been developed to pad out the play, simply to fill the next few minutes of performance. Viljoen's direction does little to counter the shapeless middle section of his script; the taut direction he contributes to the opening and closing of the piece sags too often elsewhere.

Although his script lacks definition, Viljoen scores majorly in his design of the set and costumes for THE LAST MOUSTACHE. The set works particularly well, with its period furnishings and over-the-top dressing room table, to build the audience's belief that this little rehearsal bunker was truly hidden away beneath what we know as Hitler's last headquarters and place of death. The sound design also contributes a great deal to the general mood and atmosphere, although the effects sometimes drowned out the speech.

THE LAST MOUSTACHE certainly has an intriguing premise and indulges in some fun meta-theatricality while Schmidt performs for an audience that exists only in his mind and Plewman does his best to sell the audience on the material. Beyond that, the piece appears to have some aspirations towards being a relevant and resonant piece of satire, but is let down by the absence of any clear target. Politics defers completely to playfulness in THE LAST MOUSTACHE and, given its subject matter, this deference leaves the play feeling unbalanced.

THE LAST MOUSTACHE runs at the Baxter Golden Arrow Studio Theatre from Tuesdays to Fridays at 8:15pm and on Saturdays at 3:00pm and 8:15pm until 22 November. Tickets cost R120-R145 per person via Computicket or 08619158000. Group bookings are available via Sharon Ward.