“iWitness” play review at the Mark Taper Forum (5/06)

“iWitness” at the Mark Taper Forum runs through May 21. Running time: 1 hour, 45 min.

Up until now, the name Franz Jägerstätter was known only to a few. “iWitness” is based on the true story of the quiet Austrian villager who was beheaded in 1943 for his refusal to serve in the Third Reich army to the extent of refusing to wear a uniform to do janitorial work as a conscientious objector.  The production at the Mark Taper Forum presents the story about how he upheld his convictions in the face of peer and professional pressure, spiritual advisement legal punishment and never seeing his beloved family again.

Director Barry Edelstein adapted “iWitness” from Israeli playwright Joshua Sobol’s play.   The unfortunate flaw of Edelstein’s adaptation is that is presents Franz’ stance without showing the evolution that brought him to it.   

Performed without an intermission on a virtually bare stage, the play is convincingly and powerfully acted by the ensemble cast.  Black-and-white film projections fill the back wall of Neil Patel’s spare set, capably depicting what is currently on Jagerstatter’s mind.   Despite visions of loved ones he will never see again, to Franz, death will be testimony to the fact that people have a choice whether to participate or not in a war that is unjust.

Before iWitness started,  audience members could be heard asking one another if they would have the courage to stand against the government – and the answer was “no.” Nevertheless, the audience was responsive to the spare, tight story, interrupting several scenes with approving laughs and applause.

Jagerstatter’s debates are created for the play with his mailer and the prison psychologist (Joan McMurtrey). When Jagerstatter pits jailer against psychologist it reveals different, more real responses than all of their arguments with him.

Childhood friends now in army uniform provoke represent the patriot (James Joseph O’Neil) and comical chauffeur slacker (Seamus Dever) to whom the uniform means nothing.  The two easily move from high drama to  a vaudevillian sketch and back again over the clothes – in perfect German accent.  Here his amoral  friend, Hans (Seamus Dever) is portrayed as stronger than the Nazi supporter (James Joseph O’Neil).

The dialogue that most likely occurred between Jägerstätter  and his priest (Michael Rudko) prior to certain execution.  Franz claims that he cannot fight for Hitler because violence and the immorality of the Nazi war machine is so plain: The “Fuher has broken all the rules by starting a war. He has broken the law of humanity. When a leader allows himself to break the rules of humanity, it is the responsibility of every citizen to break the leader’s rules."

Wild applause from the audience here.

Franz is played by lean, chiseled Gareth Saxe although the real Jagerstatter’s photo shows a soft with intense, believing eyes.  All of which serve only to raise questions about Edelstein’s depiction of Franz.  Did the playwright or director feel that the moral question was stronger than the evolution of character responsible for it?

For example, much is made of Jägerstätter’s birth out of wedlock and his own first daughter born out of wedlock when he lived with “wild ways” as a teen-ager. Completely missing is the fact that Franz was a voracious reader of serious books in his step-grandfather’s library, later advocating reading to his godson with these words: "People who don’t read will never be able to stand on their own feet and will all too easily become a football for the opinions of others. 

As sexton of his parish church, Jägerstätter  was known for his daily diligent and devout service.  Politically he refused not only any support for the Nazi party (NSDAP), but also declined to fight in the German army because it was for an unprovoked war started by Germany. He typically responding "Pfui Hitler" when greeted by a "Heil."  In this light it is not as farfetched to learned that the Jung farmer and family man became one of the outstanding figures of Christian resistance to National Socialism, and that he wrote a small and moving set of essays and letters he wrote in prison describing how he earlier sought  a way out of his conflict of conscience between his family responsibility and his knowledge that supporting this war would involve great personal guilt.

Despite the fact that Franz, Adolph Hitler and Adolph Eichmann called St. Radegund region their home, it was best known for its Passion plays.  Even after Hitler’s Gestapo ended them, villages in the Diocese of Linz stood united behind its anti-Nazi priests. The mayor even kept hidden the report of a woman informer against the priests, and it was these experiences that strengthened Jägerstätter in his rejection of National Socialism. What finally made up Jager’s mind in 1941 was firsthand knowledge of the Nazi destruction of the mentally ill brought to the institution in which he worked  – a fate only alluded to in the play by loud train whistles.

Jägerstätter’s relationship with his wife, the serene Franziska (Rebecca Lowman) was equally important.  After they married in 1936, Franz was the first man in the village to take his children out in a pram and to develop an unusually empathetic relationship with his three small children.  Though Franca is depicted as understanding to his stance, it never told the fascinating story about how it came about. This is compounded by the strange character of Margaret (Katrina Lenk) mother of his own child out of wedlock and placated as some sort of social retard both by him and also by his wife.  

His sacrifice was uniformly regarded as foolish by his neighbor and friends, well played in WITNESS who warned him that his cremated body would be stattered to the winds and his story forgotten.  They did not count on a book about German Catholic resistance, written by American to stand against the Vietnam War by bringing the Pentagon Papers to public attention., Gordon Zahn, In Solitary Witness, which later influenced Daniel Ellsberg’s decision