Faust Chroma is a complicated play. It deals with complicated themes and examines the life of one of Germany's most troubled icons.
“The story here is about Gustav Grundgens - the most famous German actor from the 20th century,” explains the play’s director Peter Falkenberg. “He wants to give up acting and live. He goes to manila and dies.”
Grundgens was an actor who adapted his life to suit others and sold himself to the devil - in the form of the Nazi regime.
“The focus is during the Nazi era,” says actor Ryan Reynolds. “Hermann Goring - the sort of second in command, the successor of Hitler - appointed Grundgens the head of all the state theatres in the Third Reich.”
Although it tackles some heavy topics, the play uses physical theatre, music, film and slapstick comedy to make it easier to digest.
“I think the music makes it very enjoyable for audiences,” says Falkenberg. “If they want to get more and more engaged intellectually that's fine, but you can also sit back and enjoy.”
But there is a chance audiences may also find themselves doing a little bit of soul searching after the performance.
“He could be whatever anyone wanted him to be in order to stay in power and maybe the most difficult thing was actually finding a lot of aspects of that in myself,” admits Reynolds. “That actually that might be true of me that might be true of a lot of people actually.”
Faust Chroma won Best Theatre at the Dunedin Fringe Festival last year and kicks off its brief Wellington season at Gryphon Theatre tomorrow night.
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