The scene is Berlin 1945, on the verge of Hitler's defeat. A woman folds and wraps the limbs of a prostrate young man, the husband she's just killed. She transforms him into a neat parcel of flesh that she covers with brown paper. Four German soldiers stand in darkness and speak in Bulgarian. Occasionally, they flash torches upon themselves to reveal their talking heads. From a programme synopsis we know, but do not see, something terrible is taking place. Three hungry soldiers are eating the corpse of a fourth comrade. Heiner Müller's The Battle launches the third East Goes West festival with a chilling whimper.
In 50 bizarre minutes and six scenic fragments, filtered through the shaping perspective of fantasy, Müller conveys impressions of Germans desperate, demoralised and defeated. Since this festival focuses on the Balkans, it is peculiarly appropriate that Müller's German play should be directed by the Bulgarian Dimitar Nedkov and predominantly Bulgarian actors. For Bulgaria was the one country successfully resisting Hitler's demand that it hand over its Jews. So Nedkov's compelling, surreally tilted and vigorously acted production voices a special regret and condemnation.
There are no surtitles, so it's irritatingly impossible to understand what happens in an initial Bulgarian monologue or when the soldiers turn cannibalistic. But later scenes, some in English, acquire a lurid, grotesque strangeness. The stage is full of noises, cries, grunting people, falling rain and Marlene Dietrich ironically singing she's falling in love again. Germans resemble jungle animals as they pass bread from mouth to mouth. Sheets of brown paper on which are printed magnified newsprint words are attached to rotating, seatless swings and become the means to snuff out lives. The qualities of nightmare reign.
Until 30 June. Box office: 020 7229 0706.
The Battle
