John C. Sweet and Sang Kim (Photo by Francisco Hermosillo III)
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Open Fist at Atwater Village Theatre
Through August 25
In 1919, pioneering architect Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus school for artists and craftspeople in Weimar, Germany. Gropius was a modernist, with a philosophy which embraced the intermingling of fine art with craft and integrating both into society and everyday life. Highly respected, the school attracted, as instructors, some of the finest talent of its day — such universally renowned figures as Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky as well as other accomplished artists in multiple fields. As headmaster, Gropius and the men who assumed that position after him strove to keep Bauhaus apolitical, ultimately to no avail. The school’s modern trends provoked ire and scorn from Hitler and his ilk, whose rise to power accelerated after the financial crash of 1929. Under pressure to become an arm of the State, the school, now under the leadership of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, closed in 1933 rather than wait for the new regime to gut its aims and weaponize it in the service of the new regime..
An ambitious three-part undertaking — three plays performed in two parts, with the second and third play combined in the latter — playwright Tom Jacobson’s The Bauhaus Project is set in a contemporary school for art and design here in Southern California where a group of five students are pursuing an unusual art project: a historical re-enactment of what may have occurred at Bauhaus from its founding to its closure. Part 1 covers the internal struggles within the institution itself: for example, the rivalry between Gropius (Jack Goldwait) and Johannes Itten (John C. Sweet), an artist and popular instructor who was a practitioner of Mazdaznan (a religion that shares aspects with Zoroastrianism) and exercised great influence over his students, some of whom also became adherents. Part I also features a depiction of Alma Mahler (Katarina Joy Lopez), . the former wife of composer Gustav Mahler and Gropius’s current spouse. Alma (recognized as a fine composer in her own right following Mahler’s death) is portrayed as a vamp of the first order, intent on seducing any male within her purview.
In Part 2, the political conflict sharpens. Nazism is now on the rise and its influence is felt both within the institution and from without. Whereas before talk of antisemitism was in the air, now the “Jewish Problem” has become a central matter of discussion. Once great friends, Arnold Schoenberg (Sweet) and Wassily Kandinsky (Sang Kim) become estranged after Schoenberg, born a Jew, takes umbrage at remarks by Kandinsky that he interprets as antisemitic. A defender and supporter of Bauhaus, the mayor of Dessau (Sweet), loses in an election to a Nazi. One of the school’s former students, architect Fritz Ertl (Lopez), joins the Party (and eventually becomes the architect for Auschwitz), while a textile instructor, Ottie Berger (Lopez), must wear a yellow star (She was to perish in the camp).
As concept, The Bauhaus Project bursts with possibilities for drama and intrigue. Its stories are multiple. The play is filled with interesting characters, including rebels and rule breakers and people who literally changed the world‘s thinking about art. These people lived at a crucial time and place in history, when the human spirit was under threat from the darkest of dark forces. The parallels with what is happening today are not difficult to grasp.
But none of this manifests in Jacobson’s play as currently written and presented. Because, rather than set it directly in the 1920s and 30s, the playwright has chosen to filter this most interesting content through a bland scenario that centers on a quintet of disgruntled American students who have engaged in this dramatization in order to save themselves from expulsion or failure or both. Having messed up the first time, they are forced by an irate faculty to redo it).
For me, the logic supporting this plot thread seems murky at best. The real problem, however, comes down to the coils and convolutions that the young actors in this Open Fist production are tasked with mastering: undertaking to portray an array of individuals — students, artists, instructors and government officials, some Nazis, some not, some Germans, some not, and with different accents — in a chronicle stretching over a 14-year time period, and with a minimal set and props. Some of the conflict among the historical characters relates to their perspective on art — traditional v. utilitarian, for example — hence, there is a lot of longwinded exposition on the subject — and it’s once removed, as the play unfolds in the 21st century. Remember: we aren’t watching actors play these historical figures, but instead watching actors playing students who (though mostly not actors themselves) are representing these historical figures.
Directed by Martha Demson, the ensemble does their best to entertain, and sometimes succeeds. Where humor can be milked, it’s used to advantage. As Gropius — and also as Owen, the student who initiates the project — Goldwait anchors the production with a confident persuasive presence. Chloe Madriaga is likewise consistently grounded in her roles, most impressively near the end, where she portrays Bauhaus’s third and last headmaster, Mies van der Rohe, who fights for Bauhaus but then sees the handwriting on the wall and — in the play’s most clearly dramatic scene — makes the decision to close. Lopez greatly enlivens the early scenes with her portrayal of Alma, but she’s less effective as the villainous Ertl, illustrating the problems with this multiple role format. Kim has some small funny moments that suggest a flair for comedy not fully exercised given this material. Sweet does able work as various historical personages: Schopenhauer, Itten and the mayor of Dessau.
Tech values suggest a shoestring production. The set (Richard Hoover) is largely a functional composite of flats and tables and a small, rear staircase used for selected scenes. These elements are augmented by Gavan Wyrick’s variable lighting, with sound by Tim Labor and (of necessity, given the many changes) piecemeal costuming by Michael Mullen and select props by Bruce Dickinson and Ina Shumaker. Gabrieal Griego’s projections of art, places and personages are some help to visualizing the past; I would have appreciated more of them.
Open Fist Theatre Company, Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater. Fri.-Sat., 8 pm, Sat.-Sun., 4 pm; thru Aug. 25. www.openfist.org Running time: Part 1: Bauhaus Weimer, approximately 95 minutes with an intermission; Part 2: Bauhaus Dessau and Bauhaus Berlin, approximately two hours with an intermission.
