Playwright: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
At: Trap Door Theatre,
1655 W. Cortland Ave.
Phone: (773) 384-0494; $15
Runs through: May 3
'Katzelmacher' is a xenophobic diatribe loosely translating as 'Cat-fucker,' its etymology rooted in the German belief that strangers—especially the swarthy strangers from the warm Latin countries south of the Alps—are likely to be as sexually promiscuous as tom-cats. The stranger in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's darkly satirical comedy is Jorgos, a Greek immigrant hired by a businesswoman to work in her factory. He is young and handsome, but also quiet and modest, and speaks little of the local language. Naturally, his exotic presence creates quite a stir among his new neighbors.
In Friedrich Dürrenmatt's The Visit, an expatriate exploits a small industrial town's hypocrisy for her personal revenge, but no outside catalyst is needed in Fassbinder's excoriation of small-town xenophobia. Nor do we need one—Fassbinder's text allows us to see for ourselves how self-serving fantasies of bored, disgruntled citizens are projected, embellished and codified until they become fact: If there are sufficient numbers who believe Jorgos to be a communist, his persecution soon becomes an expression of patriotism. If enough street talk insists that he is having an affair with his employer, then it is only a matter of time before that CEO will wonder why they are not. Never mind that he is being cheated on his wages, or that life before his arrival was far from idyllic—the status quo must be preserved!
Trap Door co-directors Krishna LeFan and Beata Pilch enliven this parable of universal human folly with an episodic narrative structure that breaks the text into short scenes bridged by characters frozen in attitudinal stances, accompanied by bursts of frenzied europop music (notably, the ogre-voiced Nick Cave). The dialogue is more orated than spoken, its elephantine delivery highlighting the irony inherent in its content, as the guffaws punctuating it keep us ever-aware of the brutal ugliness lurking beneath a veneer of innocent righteousness.
Katzelmacher is first and foremost an ensemble show, its action more choreographed than blocked. But Lyle Skosey projects an understated dignity as the unwilling priapal icon, and Mary Foran, a serene sensuality as the passive damsel ultimately selected to be his consort, while Nicole Wiesner all but throws off sparks as his lust-frustrated boss.