Taking Sides
Julia Houck
Donavon Armbruster, left, and Patrick O'Hara in Madison Public Theatre's 'Taking Sides.'
Donavon Armbruster, left, and Patrick O'Hara in Madison Public Theatre's 'Taking Sides.'
Ronald Harwood’s 1995 play Taking Sides has taken on added relevance at our current moment. It’s based on the true story of star German conductor and composer Wilhelm Furtwängler. After World War II, accused of collaborating with the Nazis, the conductor claimed he was on the side of art, not the Nazis. Madison Public Theatre revisits Furtwängler’s story. Performances at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday (except 1:30 p.m. Oct. 24) and 1:30 p.m. Sunday.
media release: Madison Public Theatre announces our production of Ronald Harwood’s Taking Sides at the Bartell Theatre, 113 E. Mifflin Street.
Based on the true story of the post-war American occupation of Berlin and the de-Nazification campaign, this absorbing moral debate centers on Wilhelm Furtwangler, former conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, and his interrogation by Major Steve Arnold, an American investigator into Nazi crimes.
Donavon Armbruster stars as Wilhelm Furtwangler who maintains that art stands above politics and he stayed in Nazi Germany as the stoker of the German cultural flame and to help Jewish musicians flees. Patrick O’Hara stars as Major Steve Arnold, a blunt, unsympathetic interrogator who views Furtwangler as a willing collaborator who lent his cultural prestige to legitimize Hitler’s regime.
What does the individual artist do in a fascist regime? Taking Sides fully engages the audience, leaving them with questions of morality and culpability within political turmoil, well beyond the performance. Please join us for this fascinating glimpse at the intersection of art and politics. Tickets are available at bartelltheatre.org. We hope to see you at the show!
