Review: 'Every Man for Herself', The Courtyard Theatre, 17th January 2013

It has got to be said, the cabaret scene in Mussolini’s Italy isn’t a topic that’s likely to pop up on Family Fortunes any time soon. Dario Polmanari’s ‘Every Man for Herself’ intriguingly illuminates the plight of this otherwise overlooked group, telling their story whilst cleverly steering clear of wartime cliché. Nestled into the Courtyard’s studio theatre, the choice to bypass glamour and overdone glitz in their costume and staging gives an appropriate image of decayed flambuoyance and extravagance amid a cruel fascist regime.

It’s a tricky business to successfully pull off performing a ‘performance’, and the audience is thrown straight into the ‘show’ from the off. Unfortunately the company just misses the mark. The backstage scenes where the performers, which include a Jew and a homosexual, reveal their fear of being arrested by troops who have charged into the show, falls somewhat flat where it could easily be heart-rending. It would be nice to see an observable contrast between the extravagant onstage personas and the shrivelled, fearful reality backstage. Unfortunately I didn’t.  The performers’ themselves aren’t quite sharp or energetic enough to suggest that they do this on a daily basis, whilst the ‘real life’ personas don’t display enough humanity for an audience to engage with.

The underlying problem is one of execution rather than content (aside from a slightly whimsical ending which I think could be cut). Polmanari’s writing is innovative and thought provoking, given a little more development and tighter direction, this play’s potential could be fully realised. 2/5