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Title: Watch on the Rhine
Author: Lillian Hellman
Narrator: Edita Brychta, Jonathan Cake, Heidi Dippold, Susannah Fielding, Lovensky Jean-Baptiste, Taj Jegaraj, Susan Sullivan, Patrick Wenk-Wolff, Matthew Wolf, Adam Wylie
Format: Original Recording
Length: 1 hr and 41 mins
Language: English
Release date: 01-22-18
Publisher: L.A. Theatre Works
Genres: Drama & Poetry, Modern Drama
Publisher's Summary:
In this riveting political drama, Sara, along with her German husband Kurt, returns to the opulent Washington, DC, mansion of her mother, Fanny, after years away in Europe. With Hitler and Mussolini assuming full power, Kurt finds himself blackmailed for his anti-Fascist activities as the conflict in Europe crosses the hearth of this tranquil home.
An L.A. Theatre Works full-cast production, starring:
Edita Brychta as Anise
Jonathan Cake as Kurt Müller
Heidi Dippold as Sara Müller
Anna Lyse Erikson as Babette Müller
Susannah Fiedling as Marthe de Brancovis
Lovensky Jean-Baptiste as Joseph
Taj Jegaraj as Joshua Müller
Susan Sullivan as Fanny Farrelly
Patrick Wenk-Wolff as Teck de Brancovis
Matthew Wolf as David Farrelly
Adam Wylie as Bodo Müller
Directed by Rosalind Ayres. Recorded in Los Angeles before a live audience at The James Bridges Theater, UCLA, in October 2017.
Members Reviews:
Classic drama
Somewhat dated characters and values, in this classic drama set during WW2. Unit indoor living room set. Cast calls for somewhat sterotypical African-American butler, and two children (one boy and one girl). Not great for colorblind casting.
Timeless and powerful
A timeless powerful yet hilarious contribution to anti-fascist literature of the 20th Century
Shaken Out of the Magnolias
Although not as prolific as some, and considerably more controversial than most, Lillian Hellman (1905-1984) is among the greatest American dramatists of the 20th Century. Today she is probably best known for 1934âs THE CHILDRENâS HOUR and the 1939 LITTLE FOXES, but in 1940 she created WATCH ON THE RHINE, a melodrama that shocked pre-war American audiences with a warning about the reach of Nazism and its inevitable impact on America itself.
WATCH ON THE RHINE requires a single but elaborate set displaying a sitting room that opens onto a terrace. It is performed in three acts. The cast is difficult to cast, requiring most performers to speak phrases of various foreign languages, but most particularly speaking English with a distinctly German accent. This is true of the three children in the cast, a girl twelve years old and boys nine and fourteen years old. In addition to the children, the cast requires four women and four men, one of the latter a black male.
Fanny Farrelly is a wealthy widow whose son David, secretary Anise, and houseman Joseph live with her in a large home near Washington DC. She has as houseguests Baron Teck de Brancovis and his American-born wife Marthe, who have fled Nazi dominated Europe for unspecified reasons. On this particular day she expects the arrival of her daughter Sara, whose marriage to Kurt Muller in Germany some twenty years ago created a rift between the two women; Sara now brings her own children to meet their grandmother, but here too unspecified reasons are at play.
As the play progresses, it transpires that Baron de Brancovis seeks to return to Europe by gaining the favor of the Nazisâand that Kurt Muller is a member of the German resistance, whose sudden presence in the United States may offer de Brancovis the lever he needs. The result is a fierce melodrama in which both Muller and de Brancovis engage in a battle of wits they attempt to conceal from Fanny and her household. The end result is deadly.
