The Guardian - Friday July 23, 2004

Marieluise ****

Gate, London

Lyn Gardner

In Marieluise, the winner of this year's Gate translation award, the Titanic is sunk by a group of wide-eyed children, the Danube dances across the stage as the first and second world wars come and go, and Bertolt Brecht tells his young protege Marieluise Fleisser: "The way you are, no man could ever lose himself in you. There's not enough empty space."

If things had been different, Fleisser might have been better known than Brecht. One wonders if there was more than a touch of jealousy in that woman-destroying barb.

Plays about famous or literary figures succeed only if they can offer more than mere biography. Kerstin Specht's drama, about a playwright whose works were directed by Brecht in the 1920s, passes the test with flying colours. You don't have to know anything about Fleisser's life or work (Purgatory in Ingolstadt and Pioneers in Ingolstadt were revived at the Gate over a decade ago) to be swept up in a story that examines what it meant to be a writer and a woman in the 20th century.

What Fleisser clearly needed, and tragically never got, was a room of her own. Part of the appeal of this 80-minute show is its simple directness, which is highlighted both by Rachael McGill's lightly poetic translation and by Erica Whyman's inventive play-within-a-play production.

The evening is giddy and desperate at the same time, as it charts Fleisser's adolescent yearnings, her early success and confusion, her ill-advised choice in men and her mental breakdown. You can't take your eyes off Catherine Kanter, who plays Marieluise with a mixture of steely resolve and terrifying vulnerability.