“All Quiet on the Western Front” reviewed by Jacob Davis

Recommended ***What does Erich Maria Remarque’s German anti-war novel All Quiet on the Western Front mean ninety years after its publication? It was adapted as a landmark Hollywood film in 1930 and is remembered as popular culture’s definitive take on World War I. But it was also censored by the people it claimed to be speaking on behalf of, whose atrocities include murdering the novelist’s sister. These are problems that adaptor/director Matt Foss has clearly grappled with in a production by Red Tape Theatre, produced in association with the hosting Greenhouse Theatre and the University of Toledo. The free theatre company treats the story as a memory play, with universalizing abstraction and modernization in place of Remarque’s attempt to capture a particular culture’s experience at a highly specific time.

The German infantrymen were excited to serve their country and enter the adult world when the war broke out. But that was a lifetime ago, nearly past recollection. Amid the drudgery and horror of years of trench warfare, their only real comfort was that they were permitted to remain in each other’s company, being originally all from the same town. But even that’s fading fast, as they’ve lost nearly half their number with no end to the war in sight. One of them, Kemmerich (Charlotte Mae Ellison) has lost a leg, and the rest of him is not long for this world, either. The upside is that this means there’s more food (beans, and they’re being completely serious when they call this a treat).

Chicago theatre fans may recall Foss’s smaller scale adaptation and direction of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle a few years back for Oracle Theatre, in which he displayed highly creative non-literal direction techniques. There’s a lot of that here, too, although the Vietnam era musical selections are not really integrated into the presentation, and the source material, which starts by promising not to accuse anybody, doesn’t lend itself to Brechtianism as well. The actors are all young and casting is done without regard to sex, race, or disability, with many actors playing multiple parts. It is often difficult to determine which character is which or what makes them distinctive, which lessons the impact of their deaths, and the actors mostly maintain the same strained, nobly suffering vocal delivery and wide-eyed expression throughout the large ensemble scenes. When everybody is onstage, Foss has written the company’s dialogue round robin style, with each soldier getting in a single interchangeable sentence per sequence.

But while the ensemble scenes are slow, the show’s heart shines through during its intimate moments.  As Paul, the narrator, and Kat, the grizzled scavenger, Elena Victoria Feliz and Caitlin Ewald have a lovely friendship. It injects the show with much-needed humor and motivates their characters to continue fighting for survival even after they’ve lost faith in their ostensible political/military objective. Alec Phan, as Tjaden, gets some very satisfactory revenge on the cruel drill sergeant Himmelstoss (Brenda Scott Wlazlo), but this subplot sinisterly foreshadows the military’s lack of training and indifference to the well-being of its members. When Paul hides from French soldiers, the tension is as tight as the piano strings that form an all-purpose prop and backdrop during the direction’s most inspired moments (Nicholas James Schwartz designed the set). Fans of the original will undoubtedly miss the scene of Paul telling his story to a new generation of Germans who learn entirely the wrong lesson and which was, in retrospect, one of Remarque’s most significant insights. But if one just focuses on what’s here, there’s a lot of good material once the show finds its footing, and you can’t go wrong with the price.

All Quiet on the Western Front will continue thru September 14 with performances as follows:

Mondays:            7:30 pm

Fridays:                7:30 pm

Saturdays:           7:30 pm

Sundays:              2:30 pm

Tickets are free. They may be reserved at Red Tape Theatre.

The Greenhouse Theatre is located at 2257 Lincoln Ave, Chicago. See here for parking information.

Running time is one hours and forty-five minutes.

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