"Leni" at Aurora Theatre Company

Aurora Theatre Company photo by David Allen

There was a lot to like about this production. This is the first show I've seen in Aurora's little second stage "Harry's Upstage," and I quite liked it: It's a tiny space with only three or four rows on each side of the small stage, so it's quite intimate. And that's perfect for a show such as this, where the two actors are right there, in your face.

It's short, it's beautiful, and it's thought-provoking. All really good things! And it's been extended more than once, so you can still see if through May 21st, and I recommend that you do so.

The Play

Leni Riefenstahl is a really complex character. She is acclaimed as one of the greatest film directors ever. The fact that she was a woman director at a time when that was extremely rare, and that she was quite young when she did her best-known works just speaks to the degree of her talent. All this is complicated by the fact that she did her great works with the backing of Adolf Hitler, and the films were used as Nazi propaganda. The play examines, among other things, just how complicit she was in that propaganda effort.

One of the ways playwright Sarah Greenman deals with the complexity of Leni's character is to literally split her in two. The two actors in the show are both Leni, one young and one old, and the two of them are enacting and filming scenes from Leni's life in an effort to create a work of beauty. The conflict between the beautiful and the political is a recurring theme. Leni insists that she is all about creating things that are beautiful; the fact that others use them for their own ends is not her business. But the recreation of scenes, the self-editing that accompanies, and the efforts to reconcile the memories of the two Lenis all call into question the true motivations of the artist.

So as a piece of writing, with the juxtaposition of projected scenes from Leni's actual films, this is quite a convoluted and controversial work. There is no question that some of it is stunningly beautiful. The scenes of divers from Olympia, her documentary of the 1936 Olympic Games in Munich, are breathtaking, in an entirely different way from her scenes of Nazi rallies from Triumph of the Will.

The vagaries of memory, self-justification, and ego all run together through the script in ways that keep one guessing as to what is real and what is just Leni trying to direct and edit her own life. It's really quite stunning.

The Production

Now take that stunning work and add terrific staging. In addition to director Jon Tracy's placement of projection screens behind both banks of audience seats, so everyone can see the movies and still see the whole set, Kurt Landisman's lighting is almost a character of its own. The vintage spotlights manipulated by the two Lenis on the stage give a great period feel,  but the whole lighting scheme molds the action, highlighting and backgrounding the actors and the very sparse set designed by Nina Ball. Truly, it's quite magical.

Stacy Ross and Martha Brigham, as the old and young Leni, respectively, do a marvelous job drawing each other out as well as flowing in and out of both their directorial roles and acting roles in the movie shooting inside the play. It's all quite seamless. Ross is perhaps a bit more impressive, as her version of Leni has move emotional ground to cover, and you can just watch the thoughts and emotions flowing across her face. That's not to take anything away from Brigham's performance--hers is not any easy role by any stretch. But seeing the mature Leni both coming to grips with her own story and trying to direct her younger self at the same time is really quite a masterpiece.

Anyway, I came at this not knowing all that much about Leni or her works, and found the treatment both in the text and on the stage to be fascinating. It's been driving conversation in the house now for a couple of days, which is always a good sign after a theater production.

Bottom Line

Go see it. It's really good. The play is an engrossing examination of a truly ground-breaking character. The fact that it's also an exquisite example of stagecraft is a happy bonus.