Review: Man to Man, Royal Court Theatre, London

Man to Man by Manfred Karge, originally translated by Anthony Vivis for its 1987 debut at Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre, is on the road again, revised by Stephen Unwin, who also directs. Tilda Swinton reprises her role – 85 minutes on stage, without an interval – recounting the story of a woman who takes on her husband’s identity when he dies. In twenty-eight scenes Ella becomes Max and yet is still very much Ella, recounting how she has survived in ever-more terrifying times.

Bunny Christie’s set is a white box with a confusion of objects littered across it. The items on the stage all have a purpose, and Swinton uses them with gusto. Each one demonstrates a part of her story. She also desecrates the purity of the white box in parallel with the messiness of her life.

Christie’s costume design for Swinton is a striking pair of bright red Y-fronts, topped by a string vest and worn with a pair of lace-up workman’s boots. When she first appears on stage, that get-up is topped by a pale blue floral housecoat, so right from the outset, the tension between male and female identity is visually established. Swinton is tall and sinewy and is perfect for this androgynous part. She looks like a woman and sounds like a woman and, by and large, it is as a woman that she tells her tale.

The script is as much of a hodgepodge as the props on stage. Delivered in Estuary English, Swinton’s lines cover a huge variety of poetry, prose, idle chatter, songs and reported conversations, in addition to the main storyline. This brings a touch of surrealism to the piece, and yet with each change of tone and timbre we are jolted back into the harsh reality of survival.

“When she first appears on stage, that get-up is topped by a pale blue floral housecoat, so right from the outset, the tension between male and female identity is visually established.”

Her character, Ella, hasn’t had it easy, and as a working-class woman living as a man – her dead husband Max – through turbulent decades spanning the Weimar Republic, the Third Reich, and East Germany, the theme of ‘division’ runs deeply through the play on many levels.

Tilda Swinton Shines in Stephen Unwin’s Revival of Man to Man

Layered throughout the theme of a changing Germany, we have Ella’s more personal history of bullying, aggression, imprisonment and torture, all the while just trying to keep her head above water. While the premise might seem absurd, Karge drew directly on the true story of a German woman taking on her dead husband’s identity to survive the Depression. We are engrossed in the story pretty much right from the start, forgetting it might seem a preposterous proposition and just wanting to know what happens next.

Swinton is mesmerising to watch, whether in complete repose or marching about the stage with a red drinks bottle in her hand, menacing the audience with it. There is an inner stillness to her, and yet she commands the stage. As with the script itself, Swinton metamorphoses from one thing to another, always keeping the audience with her. We are gripped by what happens next and what the eventual outcome will be. Could she really survive and keep her disguise a secret?

Even her survival plan – if necessary, to return to her woman’s clothes and reappear as Ella, all set with her old ID card – doesn’t work out as she’d imagined. Is she doomed? And yet think back to the beginning, and she’s surviving on a pension and pretending to be a Turkish charwoman from time to time for some money on the side.

“Swinton is mesmerising to watch, whether in complete repose or marching about the stage with a red drinks bottle in her hand, menacing the audience with it.”

The additions to the 1980s script of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the resurgence of the far right in Germany are seamless, though of course could not have been in the original. But, as if one were needed, what a chilling reminder of how history repeats itself.

The storyline of Man to Man is easy to follow, the scenes easy to understand, and yet this is a complex, thought-provoking piece that left me with thoughts of ‘same old, same old – what goes around comes around’ for days after, alongside the unforgettable image of Swinton in red Y-fronts and a string vest, commanding the stage without a shred of vanity.

Man to Man carries on to Edinburgh, Berlin and New York. It is likely sold out across all cities, but catch it if you can. They’ll be talking about this one for a while yet.

Featured Image: Ruediger Glatz – MANTOMAN_london