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Telefunken Queens Theatre Until Sun 5 March A chaotic narrative-within-a-narrative, involving psychotic German SS deserter Ralph Gerhardt Mann, also apparently an early pioneer of the art (or anti-art) of television, attempting to reveal to the audience his vision of the present and future social and psychological role of his pet medium, whilst the Red Army is outside his building seizing the surrounding city of Berlin (it is 1945). Dissonantly, Ralph sees the future infectious anti-consciousness of television and describes apocalyptically the metaphysical means by which he could destroy it. Writer and performer Stuart Orr takes to the stage alone here, with a set laden with papers, curtains and screens mostly conforming to the fascist colour code of red,z white and black. Orr is scarily convincing and extremely captivating, particularly because of his clearly genuine connection with the potent material. 'Potency' is a key adjective for 'Telefunken', its central concerns being fascism and popular culture. Television and Nazism are juxtaposed tightly to reveal the fact that the two sit together very snugly and in many ways are indistinguishable. Both, Orr puts so powerfully, are sinister alternatives to proper social and psychological human consciousness, forcing human existence into a deathly stream of seclusion and blandness. 'Telefunken' is challenging viewing and worth the effort.  |
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