Word: hitler
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...skeleton unearthed last December half a mile from the site of Hitler's bunker was indisputably that of Bormann, said Horst Gauf, the Hesse state prosecutor whose office was in charge of the case. He said that bone and dental evidence made it a "certainty" that theoft-seen phantom had died in the fall of Berlin. He therefore ordered all search warrants quashed; any future reports that Bormann has been sighted will be officially ignored...
...Akropolis, the film of Jerzy Grotowski's Polish Laboratory Theater, can bear me out on that. Slawomir Mrozek has already made his mark on modern theater with such widely produced plays as Tango and Police. Like many of his Polish contemporaries, he is preoccupied with the lessons of the Hitler regime. (Grotowski's actors, for instance, wear army fatigues no matter what play they are doing, while dismembered department-store mannequins and blood-stained clothing are common props in current Polish stage design.) The strength of Mrozek's allusion varies from play to play, but in all three works...
...connections to the Hitler era are obvious: the unquestioning obedience to authority, the abnegation of responsibility, the refusal to alter ordinary patterns of behavior. But these issues apply to other political situations as well, and the play does not depend on the memory of Hitler for its power. Mrozek has created a situation which alludes to the war years and at the same time transcends that specific period. Placed in such a situation, we would be just as likely as Mr. I or Mr. II to act the way they do. We cannot find excuses or explanations for their actions...
...plots, too, have less potential than in Striptease. In Repeat Performance, Hitler's ghost returns to haunt Daddy, first as a garishly dressed woman and then as a bald-headed soldier. The Ghost reproaches Daddy for ceasing to love him, and then attempts to seduce Daddy's son. (Daddy, meanwhile, is running off with his daughter-in-law, She. The purpose of this subplot is never made quite clear.) With uncharacteristic heavy-handedness, Mrozek ends the play by blatantly stating his main point in the Ghost's last lines: "Time for me to go. But I'll be back. Tomorrow...
...dazzle seems inappropriate. Thus, when he describes the reaction to one of Casey's speeches, it is the scene, and not the author's splendid suppleness, that lingers in the mind: "And when it was over, they exploded with a passion that would have sent Hitler to bed happy. 'My God, he's one of us. He's against the war, but he's one of us.' Casey sat there, head forward, staring at the future, like Churchill. The virility that was too much for a small office, the St. Bernard breathing...