Word: frayn
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...Brits have stuck by us in Iraq, and they continue to supply a good portion of our Broadway theater. But that doesn't mean we have to thank them for everything. Take Democracy, the new Michael Frayn play about former West German Chancellor Willy Brandt that just opened on Broadway. The play won nearly unanimous critical raves in London, walked away with major awards and promised to provide Broadway with at least one prestige dramatic hit of the season. But Democracy is one British import that doesn't survive the crossing...
...Frayn charts the rise and fall of Brandt--the left-leaning Chancellor who made the first major steps toward reconciliation with communist East Germany--through the eyes of Gunter Güillaume, a trusted aide who turned out to be an East German spy. "When people asked me what I was writing about," Frayn told the New York Times, "I would say, 'German politics in the 1970s,' and their eyes would glaze over." Cute, but the anecdote doesn't have the right punch line. Despite the efforts of this estimable playwright (Noises Off, Copenhagen), the audience's eyes glaze over...
...Frayn's technique is a fluid mix of re-enactment and narration, docudrama and memory play. Most of the story is told by Güillaume, a Teutonic Sammy Glick who worked his way into Brandt's confidence--and passed along everything he saw and heard to his East German contact, who converses with him from a corner of the stage for much of the play. We witness Brandt's political successes, the infighting among his Cabinet, his knack for galvanizing crowds and his weakness for women. But it's all surprisingly dry and flatfooted as drama: too much tell...
...Frayn?s new play is the story of that spy, Gunther Guillaume, who made himself indispensible to Brandt and became one of his three secretaries, vetting all the Chancellor?s papers after sending copies to his bosses in East Berlin. Conleth Hill (who amused Broadway audiences as one of the two actors playing dozens of roles in ?Stones in My Pockets? three years back) incarnates Guillaume as a piggy-faced toady who can?t help admiring his victim. ?He listens, that?s his trick,? he says of Brandt. The Chancellor, impersonated by Roger Allam (the original Javert in the musical...
...Michael Blakemore?s direction gives the piece a racing pulse, as if to underline that this is a comedy of duplicity. As Frayn?s classic farce ?Noises Off? showed the performance of a play on stage, then from backstage, ?Democracy? reveals the public face of Brandt?s Ostpolitik and the inner scheming of Guillaume and the other top staffers, who are loyal but scarcely more likable. The you-break-my-neck-I?ll-break-yours pace stirs suspicions that the play is more bustling than profound. I prefer Alan Bennett?s two one-acters, ?An Englishman Abroad? (about Brit superspy...