Review: TOM FOOL, Orange Tree Theatre

On the night marking two years since theatres were forced to close their doors due to the pandemic, we are reminded of the power of theatre in Franz Xaver Kroetz's Tom Fool. This poignant and disquieting play from 1978 neatly explores the crumbling of a family as social pressures thwart their ambitions and expectations.

We meet Otto Meier, a worker on the BMW assembly line who complains about his work to his ever-patient wife, Martha, and his unemployed son, Ludwig. Martha is tired and unengaged and Ludwig's sense of enforced isolation is growing. He steals money to escape to a concert, which leads to the family's lives imploding.

Xaver Kroetz is Germany's most frequently performed playwright; a left-leaning former Communist Party member and neat observer of the minutiae of life. The family is seen watching a royal wedding on television, Otto and Martha on a shopping trip and Otto proudly working on his model glider.

Through these mundane events, there is a sense of acute claustrophobia. Otto cannot concentrate on having sex with Martha as he is so distracted by having a pen taken from him by his boss and not returned. When they go for a meal, he cannot enjoy the memory, as he is mistakenly believes that he was overcharged.

Michael Shaeffer is excellent as he shows the acute, existential crisis developing in Otto, as he begins to see himself as just a cog in the large machine of capitalism. Shaeffer is both awkward and vulnerable as he shows Otto's rage ignited by a realisation that he is disposable, trapped in his life and suffocating.

Anna Francolini shows both slowly rising resentment and self-awareness as Martha and Jonah Rzeskiewicz is touchingly lost as Ludwig, but is a little underused.

Xaver Kroetz shows forward thinking in his writing. Otto is very flawed and quite unlikable as a character. When he makes his trembling son strip to find the money he has taken, the action is abject in its cruelty and humiliation. However, we sympathise that much of Otto's behaviour is evidence of a mental breakdown. Xaver Kroetz creates Otto as a man damaged by the constraints of society, but his suffering is unsentimental.

Otto experiences a real crisis in his masculinity; he feels crippled as the norms of himself as the breadwinner and family patriarch are challenged and subverted. The play addresses the issues at a time when women were breaking away from their role in the domestic space. Martha is both aware of and uncomfortable with this.

The production is not comfortable to watch with its grim realism and emptiness, but it is not meant to be. These are lives without much hope or love and each character becomes increasingly alone and isolated.

Estella Schmid and Anthony Vivis' translation is occasionally rather clunky and often does not flow well to the English-speaking ear. Diyan Zora's direction brings out some surprising moments of comedy in the script and also embraces the playwright's silences as well as words. It is the small gestures and seemingly banal movements that become imbued with meaning. When Otto smashes up the flat in a fit of rage, Otto and Martha slowly clean up the mess in a silence lasting over five minutes. It is both functional and moving.

Zoë Hurwitz's design evokes the 1970s well, with brown and orange tones in the furniture and clothing. A period ceiling fan slowly and continually rotates, reminding the audience of the unrelenting bleakness and tedium within the play.

Not everyone will appreciate the harsh sadness and banality of the production, but the nuanced and powerful performances on display are enough to leave a lasting impression.

Tom Fool is at the Orange Tree Theatre until 16 April

Photo Credit: The Other Richard

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