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The Theatreguide.London Review
The
Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui
Swan
Theatre, Stratford Spring 2026
Brecht described his 1941 play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui as a parable illustrating the events leading to the horror of the German Nazi regime, taking us from 1929 to 1938. A brief description of the historical event the show is referring to appears on a screen above the stage as the story unfolds.
The hunched-up figure of Ui
(Mark Gatiss) in his soiled, worn-out raincoat is first seen shuffling
towards a soup kitchen. Huge shadows beneath his eyes and dark black lines
down his face make him seem an unlikely figure to take over the Chicago
cauliflower trade, but by blackmail and violence he eventually rules the
cauliflower business in Chicago and Cicero.
Georgina Lowe gives a German Expressionist tilt to the costume design, and
Seán Linnen’s direction ensures a clear, brisk pacing of the show with
scenes separated by sudden darkness or brief hard rock music from the band
Placebo placed on the roof of a ten-foot-high cube structure that
occasionally slides onto the stage to pick up, for instance, a coffin.
In one remarkable scene change, Roma’s (Kardiff Kirwan) gang members are
machine gunned, their bodies seeming to be held up by the hail of bullets
till they turn into the next scene’s floral display of Givola’s flower
shop. To emphasise the satirical nature of what we are seeing, all guns in
the show are represented by vegetables.
Most of the cast play multiple roles, with Christopher Godwin first
appearing as the shady politician Dogsborough and later as the actor Ui
brings in to teach him walking and speaking skills, such as the
goose-stepping we associate with fascism and the rhetorical flourishes of
the likes of Shakespeare’s Mark Antony.
In gesture, appearance, facial expression and voice, Mark Gatiss grabs our
attention from the moment he enters as Arturo Ui. Although, like a cartoon
figure, he can raise a smile, he also includes moments such as the
occasion he licks the face of Betty Dullfeet (Janie Dee), whose husband he
has had murdered, which can unsettle us.
Every so often, the cast will indulge in some very gentle audience
participation by asking individuals a question. Get the right answer, and
like the woman in the front row, you too might be awarded a fire
extinguisher.
The show finishes under the sign reading the Financial District with three
smartly red-uniformed men standing centre stage, their armbands bearing a
red cross that will remind everyone of the swastika.
As satirical entertainment and a warning of what can happen again, the
show never flags, but Brecht emphasises this with an epilogue spoken by
Mark Gatiss in his own voice, ending with the words “Do not rejoice in his
defeat… the bitch that bore him is in heat again.”
Keith McKenna
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