Tilda Swinton Revives Karge's Man to Man with New Nazi-Renaissance — SkimNews
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- Tilda Swinton is reprising Manfred Karge's Man to Man at London's Royal Court, 39 years after she first performed the multicharacter monologue about a 1930s German widow who assumes her dead husband's identity and job as a crane operator
- Manfred Karge, the 88-year-old playwright, has added a 28th scene addressing the renaissance of Nazi ideology — written as poetry: 'The war dead have risen / In the dark of night' — which premiered five days after the far-right AfD party topped state polls in Saxony-Anhalt
- Stephen Unwin directs a revised version of Anthony Vivis's 1980s English translation, with Swinton performing on a Bunny Christie set dotted with East German technology including a fridge and tape machine
- The production runs at the Royal Court until 24 October, then moves to Edinburgh's Traverse (29 October–7 November), Berlin, and New York in February
- Swinton's performance draws on gruff laddishness as a base tone, transforming verbally and physically into other women and men; with high hair and white body paint she resembles David Bowie's Aladdin Sane avatar
- The Royal Court featured an unusual first-night red carpet that prompted a writer long associated with the venue to register 'shock' at what he called Hollywood vulgarity at the historically radical space
Why it matters: Karge's decision to add a new scene about resurgent Nazi ideology in Germany — staged just days after the AfD's electoral breakthrough in Saxony-Anhalt — gives a 42-year-old play renewed political urgency, and the production's international tour (Edinburgh, Berlin, New York) will carry that message across three Western theatre capitals.
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