With an old story and new storytelling techniques, Dutch
performer Fedja van Huet will bring a bricklayer’s tale of
bravery and rebellion to the Freud Playhouse Oct. 23, 25 and
26.
Dutch theater company ZT Hollandia returns to UCLA after last
year’s performance of “Voices” to present
“Quick Lime,” a one-man show about a man who tried to
rebel against Hitler and the Nazi regime. “Quick Lime”
is an exploration of the historical character, Marinus van der
Lubbe, who presumably started a fire inside Berlin’s
Reichstag in 1933 to warn German workers about the onslaught of
Hitler’s tyranny. Hitler used this fire as an excuse to
arrest 5,000 left-wing opponents, helping himself to win the
election and begin his reign as dictator.
Van der Lubbe’s diaries and letters provided much of the
raw material for the play, with fable and mystery playing central
roles as well.
“I had heard the usual stuff about Marinus,” said
van Huet over the phone from his hotel. “Did he do it or not?
We made a decision not to do a “˜who-done-it’ and ended
up showing a person who was not a very articulate guy, but was a
man with an idea that he really went for.”
Van Huet talks knowingly about van der Lubbe. After playing him
for years in this production and appearing in a documentary about
him, van Huet speaks with clarity about his character’s
beauty and simplicity ““ he hopes these attributes will
survive the trip to Los Angeles.
“In Germany, everyone knows the story. I’m very
curious to see how it will work here, but I think people will get
the beauty and the sadness of it: that one man tried to do a good
deed and was punished for it.”
While van Huet is the only actor, he is not the only thing
communicating with audiences. Music is important to ZT Hollandia
productions and “Quick Lime” is no different. The music
for “Quick Lime” is mostly electronic, utilizing
authentic recordings of van Huet’s own voice to create an
atmosphere that belies the rural simplicity of van der
Lubbe’s real life. Finding a way to work with the music took
time for van Huet.
“When we started we improvised a lot while looking for
possibilities,” he said.
Another part of the play that is in a way central to its pulse
is walking. Van der Lubbe tried to walk to Soviet Russia and later,
to China. These lofty goals are evidence of both van der
Lubbe’s naivete and his reaction to what he saw happening to
the world around him.
“(Instead of walking to Russia) he walked to Berlin and
saw how people were living there. He describes everything and the
play is about his journey,” said van Huet.
Van Huet is honest about van der Lubbe’s shortcomings.
“He was thick-headed and had too many ideas,” he
said.
Yet van Huet is also quick to emphasize van der Lubbe’s
devotion to his own ideas. The play’s intention is to go
beyond the simple history of van der Lubbe and get inside the mind
of a worker who tried to divert a huge social movement with only
himself.
“Quick Lime” runs Oct. 23, 25, 26 at Freud Playhouse
at 8 p.m. Tickets are $35 and $15 for students.