David Tillistrand right, plays Hermann Göring in “The Interpreter.”
The name of the play that The Theater Project is currently presenting at The Oakes Center in Summit is “The Interpreter.” But it is the really the person whose words are being interpreted who is of most interest.
David Tillistrand plays Nazi leader Hermann Göring in this 90-minute, two-act drama, which is written by Joseph Vitale and directed, here, by The Theater Project’s founding artistic director Mark Spina. And Tillistrand’s performance is the best thing about it.
The play is set in Nuremberg, Germany, in October 1945. Helping to set the scene, pop songs from the era (“Sentimental Journey,” “Don’t Fence Me In”) are heard, and black-and-white footage of war atrocities is shown.
Göring, arguably the second most powerful Nazi, has been captured, and is about to go on trial. He requests a personal interpreter, and the Americans grant that request, believing that if they keep him happy, he will be more cooperative, and they may be able to extract valuable information from him. There are other Nazi leaders they are still looking for, and they believe Göring may know where the Nazis hid invaluable artwork that they stole.
Pvt. Richard Rosen (played by Sam Saravolatz), whose military career has been unremarkable up until this point, is brought in to be the interpreter. And his lengthy, one-on-one meetings with Göring — fulfilling another unconventional request from him, granted in the hope of keeping him happy — make up the bulk of the play.
Even wearing an undershirt and slacks, in a tiny jail cell, Göring, as played by Tillistrand, has a larger-than-life aura. He is vain and arrogant, and speaks in a deep, hypnotic, elegant rumble. He has such a commanding presence that it is easy to see how he rose so high in the Nazi ranks.
Sam Saravolatz in “The Interpreter.”
Rosen is no match for him. For the most part, he just tries to do his job, as Göring does his best to subtly influence him. Göring tries, for instance, to make Rosen feel that he is part of his “team,” and not an impartial observer.
“You and my attorney are charged with saving my life,” Göring says. “I will speak in words, but you can turn my words into music. My life will hang on the words that you choose.”
Rosen’s prickly supervising officer Col. Erickson (Mike Marcou) hounds him to do more to get information out of Göring, thinking that this will help them both rise in the ranks. “I am not going to have this opportunity again; careers in the military are made in moments like this,” he says. But Rosen usually just sits there as Göring vents his anger and stomps his feet, like the entitled monster that he is.
Other characters include the amiable Lt. Cosgrove (Brian Nowak), who serves under Erickson and above Rosen; and Dr. Gillman (Gary Glor), who wants to use information gleaned from Rosen’s encounters for a book he is writing on the psychology of the Nazi mind.
I thought this play has a great set-up. Put these characters who basically represent opposites — the high-ranking Nazi officer and the low-ranking, Jewish U.S. soldier — together, in close quarters, and watch them battle it out, verbally.
But Rosen is no match for Göring, when it comes to this type of sparring. When Göring, for instance, does finally talk about the stolen artwork and says, “I could teach you a thing or two about art,” that is a golden opportunity for Rosen to prod him, and get some useful information. But Rosen just shrugs and says, “it would be wasted on me … I’m not much of an art lover.”
Mike Marcou, left, and Sam Saravolatz in “The Interpreter.”
In its second act, the play veers off in other directions, instead of ratcheting up the mutual manipulating. Cosgrove offers Rosen some fishing tips. Rosen gives a lengthy soliloquy about the prejudice he has encountered in the army. He and Göring also act out a portion of the trial; and the two have a melodramatic, and deeply unrealistic, final confrontation.
And so, I felt that the individual parts of “The Interpreter” didn’t work together as well as they should have. Rosen’s soliloquy, for example, was undeniably intense, and said something important about the experience of Jewish soldiers in World War II. It represented, you could say, the play’s emotional climax.
But it also felt tangential to the play’s main relationship (between Rosen and Göring). And so I was left wondering what it was doing there, in the first place.
The Theater Project will present “The Interpreter” at The Oakes Center in Summit through Aug. 25. Visit thetheaterproject.org.
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