Tom Fool playing at the Orange Tree Theatre reviewed by Christopher Walker

Ever since Paul Miller the former National Theatre star director took over the Orange Tree, it has gone from strength to strength, writes Christopher Walker.

Ambition and competence going hand in hand. Well, the tiny theatre-in-the-round in South-west London has pulled it off again with Tom Fool.

A German ‘kitchen sink drama,’ it is the vehicle for three outstanding acting performances, and an evening of gripping drama.

The writer, Franz Xavier Kroetz was born in Munich, and like so many struggling actors took a variety of poorly paid jobs to live – everything from cutting bananas to being a hospital porter.

This gave him a unique insight into the banal misery of working-class life that was the hidden flipside to West Germany’s post war affluence and conspicuous consumption.

It is this angst that came spilling out in a series of critically acclaimed works in the 1970s, such as Farmyard in 1971 and Tom Fool in 1978.

These also drew on Kroetz’s period working in Germany’s traditional Bauerntheater (a kind of peasant farce about stock situations) and his
politicisation as a member of the German Communist Party (DKP) in 1972.

By the 1980s, Kroetz left the party and was able to put all his struggles behind him with a well-paid acting job playing a gossip columnist in the German TV hit series Kir Royal.

But his troubled years in the 1970s have fortunately left the theatre with a series of wonderful plays (Tom Fool is part of a trilogy) which seek to give voice to those too often unable to express themselves, or to characters whose lives are simply not seen by others.

This is very much the case in Tom Fool. The central character, Otto works in one of those many car factories around Munich where the daily grind reduces him to a mere “cog in the machine.”

An artistic expression of the dehumanising industrial phenomenon of ‘anomie’ identified by the sociologist Durkheim.

Michael Schaeffer, known to TV audiences for his roles in Bodyguard and The Salisbury Poisonings gives a first-rate performance.

One feels his pain.

Otto has moments of insightfulness, but his growing frustration at the banality and failure of his life at one-point spills over into the violent destruction of his own apartment in a wonderfully theatrical moment.

Bravo to director Diyan Zora and designer Zoe Hurwitz for executing this perfectly.

Michael is equally matched by the outstanding acting of Anna Francolini as his much put-upon wife Martha who spends her life clearing up after Otto in every sense. Anna totally breathes life into the character, and her performance deserves an award.

The relationship between the two gradually deteriorates as the strains of Otto’s mid-life crisis boils over and their financial straight jacket tightens.

It is further exacerbated by tensions with their son, Ludwig. The third person in this very claustrophobic household. Young newcomer Jonah Rzeskiewicz rises to match the performances of his stage parents.

In a stock father/teenage son confrontation reminiscent of Bauerntheater, Otto takes Ludwig on over some missing money and forces him to undergo a belittling strip search. It is another gripping moment of the evening.

What makes Kroetz’s drama so compelling, is that it is not the kind of dreary polemic we see too often on London stages. Yes, it is highly intelligent and political. But his situations are real, and the characters believable.

It would be interesting to see more of his work, especially if it is in such capable hands as The Orange Tree.

For an evening of high drama go to https://orangetreetheatre.co.uk/whats-on

Pictured: Tom Fool – Production Photos: Orange Tree Theatre ©The Other Richard