| 'Adolf' in India
 The
one-person show is a much-loved British dramatic tradition, bringing to present
life many of the great creative geniuses of the past. But it takes an unique
audacity and careful judgement to bring to the stage last century's most hated
demagogue. It also takes writing and performing skills to extend the reach of
that historic tyranny into the prejudicial slippage of our societies. Prior to
his extensive British Council performance tour through India of Adolf, writer
and solo performer, Pip Utton, describes the experience of being Hitler.
"Let me say right at the
beginning that I am more excited than I can describe to be about to tour India.
I read my guidebooks and the very names of the towns and cities resonate with a
distant magic. And I know, I really know, that I 'am boldly going' where only my
dreams have been before.
By
the time I arrive in Mumbai I will be fifty-two years old. I am a child of the
sixties: The Beatles, hippies, free love, drugs, flower power. It was the
'dawning of the age of Aquarius', we were going to change the world, and we were
going to make love, not war. We were a generation of angry young men. Or at
least they were, I wasn't. I didn't join in. There was, I regret to say, only
the tiniest spark of questioning in me and certainly no flame of rebellion. But
over the years I have changed. I have seen the dreams of the Sixties return to
the racism and intolerances it promised to destroy and I have become the angry
young man I never thought I'd be; the angry middle-aged man!
 I
am writing this as I prepare to leave for Berlin to perform 'Adolf' for a third
visit, 20 performances in all in the city that witnessed some of the greatest
excesses of the Hitler 'crusade'. It was a crusade that was to lead the German
peoples on a journey of evil that stained the map of the world forever. On my
last visit to Berlin, two years ago, I had a question and answer session after
the shows. I didn't know what to expect as 'an Englishman, son of Empire'
portraying the man responsible for their feelings of guilt. The sessions were
often very emotional, with many tears, and one comment stands out in my memory.
A man, about my age, reflected on how I could, if I wanted, ask my father what
he did in the war; but he couldn't. He was afraid that he would be ashamed of
the reply. Almost sixty years on, the guilt of what happened and the inability
to understand how it happened is as strong as ever. I don't want my sons to be
afraid of asking me.
I'm
not particularly interested in probing into the psyche of Adolf Hitler. What
made him the man he was is for me quite irrelevant. I want to know how he did
it; I want to know how he rose to such an all-powerful position and inspired the
fanatical love and worship from so many of his followers. And I want to be aware
of how those we look to for leadership today may still use his methods of
manipulation, and emotive perverted logic to persuade us to follow them."
Adlof plays in Chennai (March 5
-- at the Museum Theatre, Egmore), Bangalore (March 3) and Hyderabad (March 7).
RR
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