The Captain of Kopenick

Synopsis

Released after fifteen years in prison, trapped in a bureaucratic maze, petty criminal Wilhelm Voight wanders 1910 Berlin in desperate, hazardous pursuit of identity papers. Luck changes when he picks up an abandoned military uniform in a fancy-dress shop and finds the city ready to obey his every command. At the head of six soldiers, he marches to the Mayor's office, cites corruption and confiscates the treasury with ease. But still what he craves is official recognition that he exists.

Starring Antony Sher as the title role, and directed by Adrian Noble, Carl Zuckmayer's The Captain of Kopenick will run at the National Theatre's Olivier from 29 January to 4 April.

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Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 6 February 2013

Almost like old times at the National: a big, bustling European comedy classic, an eye-catching star performance, a large cast, a brass band, non-stop scenery action, patriotic songs and the "Internationale".

Yes, Carl Zuckmayer's 1931 play of the Weimar Republic is back at the National 40 years after Paul Scofield gave one of his most brilliant and scintillating Old Vic performances as the petty criminal and boot maker, Wilhelm Voigt.

Antony Sher saw that performance and now gives his own, very different, version of a beetling little man, a "cheeky chappy" who leaves a Prussian prison in 1910 without any identification papers and goes in pursuit of them, rather like Pinter's caretaker, through a series of picare...

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Latest User Review

David Baxter - 14 March 2013:

The play starts promisingly with a very funny scene as Anthony Sher's Voight is discharged from prison without any identity papers but then takes an interminable amount of time to finally reach the point where Voight assumes the uniform and identity of a cavalry captain. That scene is also extremely funny in a more absurdist manner but it's not really enough to sustain 2 1/2 hours. German humour may be an oxymoron but it's not helped by some surprisingly coarse jokes presumably thanks to Ron Hutchinson's unsubtle adaptation. Adrian Noble seems to be in thrall to the technical possibilities of the Olivier and heavily belabours the point about Germany's weakness for strong military leaders - the Kaiser may have had many faults and may have sown the seeds for the rise of the Nazis but he was no Hitler. I came late to Anthony Sher's stage appearances but the choices he has been making make me wonder what he did to deserve a knighthood. Just as in Travelling Light he comes perilously close to overdoing the ham; perhaps a return to the RSC is called for....

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