Review: In 'The Damned,' a Nightmare of Facism Aided by Greed

Over the past two-and-a-half years, a smattering of theater has attempted to address the fears some have of Trump’s America. Michael Moore took the president on in his one-man Broadway show; Shakespeare in the Park turned him into a doomed Julius Caesar; there was even a throw-away line referencing him in "Miss Saigon."

But nowhere has there been as clear-eyed and horrific a vision of what can happen when people do nothing about growing facism than in “The Damned.” The drama, set in 1930s Germany, is not about Trump at all. And yet its focus on the ways the wealthy and powerful sold out their country to the Nazis feels less like a historic footnote and more like a window into a dystopian future. It is a brilliant and unsettling production that redefines our current political moment, stripping away the illusion that those in power can (or want to) save democracy from determined tyrants.

Directed by the unflinching Ivo van Hove and performed by the Comédie Française at the Park Avenue Armory in French with English supertitles, “The Damned” tells the story of a steel magnate and his scheming extended family, and the lengths they will go to keep their business profitable. They use a crisis of democracy — the burning of the German parliament building, the Reichstag, by an arsonist — as an excuse to slake their ambitions, lust and greed at the expense of their people and eventually themselves.

The play is based on Luchino Visconti’s 1969 film, which was a campy soap opera. Van Hove retains cinematic elements — a giant screen at the back of the bare stage is used to project actors in closeup, plus occasional long shots — but has transformed the material into a deadly serious piece that is as disturbing as anything I’ve seen on the stage. It leans into the darkest side of humanity. There are skin-crawling scenes of pedophila, for example, and intense scenes of close-up terror as people — ordinary people, powerful people, men and women — are faced with their own murders.

But despite the occasional melodramatic element, it all feels like truth. And most true of all is when the camera turns on the audience with the house lights up, projecting their stunned faces onto the screen, as if to say: Everyone is a witness when a government falls. And if those witnesses do nothing, they are collaborators.

"The Damned," adapted by Ivo van Hove from a screenplay by Luchino Visconti, Nicola Badalucco and Enrico Medioli and directed by Ivo van Hove. At the Park Avenue Armory through July 28.