by Joel Elkins~

John Stuercke claims he wrote The Berlin Dig as a reaction to the recent rise in fundamentalism in the United States and even gives credit to Sarah Palin for inspiring it. We can now add this to the list of things she has inflicted us with.

First of all, the play, now making its world premiere at the El Centro Theatre, is hardly even a play, but more like a two-hour screed, perhaps serving as cathartic therapy for the author but providing very little entertainment value to the audience and breaking no new ground either politically or theatrically.

The “story” is paper thin: Dieter (Roy Allen), a German man born in 1945, has recently lost both his parents, who, he was proud to say, were both anti-Nazi activists during the war, thereby absolving him of much of the shame felt by his friends of the same age. Going through some old papers, however, Dieter discovers that he was adopted and that his birth father was actually a Nazi storm trooper. Discovering that he now has relatives living in the US, he invites Robert (Brett Fleisher), one of his new-found American cousins, to visit him in Berlin.

That’s it. Not in a nutshell. In detail. The rest of the play consists of Dieter, his German friends Peter and Rolf (played by Irwin Moskowitz, Markus Obermeier, respectively), Turkish immigrant Ali (Adam Shahinian) and, later on, Robert sitting around talking history and politics: World War II, the Holocaust, the Vietnam War, the reunification with East Germany, Iran, Iraq, the Armenian Genocide. I suppose it could have worked as a play if the subjects discussed melded with the story and the conversation developed organically, but they didn’t and it didn’t.

Instead, it plays out like a one-sided debate, with Dieter clearly representing the author’s viewpoint with the other characters appearing mostly as foils. Mr. Stuercke’s politics clearly lean left, as Dieter lambasts American imperialism and banana republic foreign policy and praises the American public for finally electing an intelligent president in Barack Obama. Dieter (and presumably Stuercke) is most angry and frustrated that every president since World War II has taken it upon himself to dictate international policy and impose America’s will and its sense of right and wrong upon other countries, mostly in the name of oil. However, even as political commentary, Berlin Dig fails. It is too heavy-handed to be convincing to those who believe otherwise, and those who agree have probably heard it all before.

The dialogue is not realistic or clever. It jumps from topic to topic unexpectedly and with no apparent connection. Stuercke claims he wrote the play in three weeks, and I don’t doubt it. It shows.

To make matters worse, Mr. Stuercke chooses to direct the play himself. As I’ve said before, that’s an iffy proposition for any playwright, especially one with little experience directing theater.

The actors seem unsure of what to do with themselves on stage. And, despite being halfway through the play’s one-month run, many appeared to be forgetting their lines and their cues. At times, when they are called upon to express emotion, such as anger, it seems out-of-the-blue and forced. The actors appear to be reciting their lines as if in a bad infomercial.

I can’t even recommend the set or costumes, as they are so simple (all black in both cases) that the designers are not even mentioned in the program.

And with all that, the play does not seem to have any overall message except humankind everywhere stinks. Well, plays that live in glass houses . . . .

The Berlin Dig is performed Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 2 pm through March 6, 2011.

The El Centro Theater is located at 800 N. El Centro Ave. in Hollywood (one block east of Vine between Melrose and Santa Monica).

Ticket prices: $20.00

Reservations online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/141320 or by phone at (800) 838-3006.