Force Fed Food; Force Fed Beliefs

Hitler’s Tasters – North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie

The second in the lineup for North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie’s Feature Series Summer 2019 Season, “Hitler’s Tasters” runs from July 5th to July 14th. Written by Michelle Kholos Brooks, the show is a dark comedy inspired by true stories and directed by Sarah Norris. Four women take the stage as they are tasked with the stressful order of tasting Adolf Hitler’s food before he consumes it himself to make sure that it is safe and unpoisoned. After completing its run in Chicago, this production will travel to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. This incisive look at how young women aren’t treated well in any age or country only runs for two weekends, so get your tickets NOW. 

Ricocheting from having pride in their country to having doubts, these adolescent girls have to deal with growing up in one of the most stress-inducing eras of the 21st century. As if puberty isn’t bad enough, they have to eat potentially poisoned food during a war. All mentions of sexual assault and violence are handled tastefully, because these well-bred young women would have been taught to express and discuss it sensitively; they wouldn’t be too open or discriptive. Therefore, it successfully balances supplying the truth without triggering the audience. 

Often, we transplant older tales to newer times to make it more relatable or accessible to the audience. Playwright Kholos Brooks has employed this technique but has done it so well that it has a more insightful and mature result. No one can guarantee what the age of the audience or their knowledge of history is, so you can’t hope to spark recognition in everyone. Instead, by crafting this anachronistic setting, Kholos Brooks has both de-romanticized and de-vilified the past. We get the full colored, high definition picture of these young women instead of a faded, sepia toned photograph in a dusty frame. 

Given the freedom to portray the fierceness and follies of girls, these actors do not back down from the challenge. MaryKatharyn Kopp impertinently pouts and slyly cocks an eyebrow to manipulate the other tasters as the Queen Bee, Hilda. As the voice of reason trying to keep the peace amongst them, Hallie Griffin, as the intellectual Liesel, endearingly skitters about the stage like Bambi on a frozen lake. Even though all of the tasters have creeping doubts and insecurities, Anna (Kaitlin Paige Longoria) is easily pegged as a scapegoat due to her sensitive and poetic nature, as expressed by Longoria’s melodic voice. Bursting onto the stage further into the evening, Hannah Mae Sturges supplies some much needed whimsy and frivolity as the spunky, if somewhat naive and privileged, Margot. Through the talent and expertise of the aforementioned actors, we fall in love with those young women who were spoon fed a belief system used to deny the living rights of another culture. We watch them chase the ideal image of a woman defined by a dictator, only to be disposed of once they had served their purpose. They were told that the fate of the nation lay in their stomachs and wombs and on top of their shoulders, only to be devalued and erased by history. 

Choreographer Ashlee Wasmund crafted movement pieces to transition between scenes. Most effectively, she choreographed the momentus consumption of Hitler’s food, which was done always to the same music so that we could experience the evolution of the young women’s attitude towards their “civic duty.” However, the moments created to give the ensemble the opportunity to change costumes weren’t as effective, because after having unreservedly danced around the stage and called each other vulgar terms ranging from b*tch and c*nt, they positioned themselves demurely so that their front would be facing the audience as they were bending over the put on their skirts as opposed to their posteriors. 

Supplying said costumes is Ashleigh Poteat, who shrewdly dressed them in clothes that were period appropriate but also can still be found in stores and in school uniforms today. When we first encounter a set of the young women, they are dressed in similar, but not identical outfits. This visually lets us see their personalities as we get acquainted with them. In the following scenes, they change into matching attire as we see their agency stripped away from them. For the sound design, Carsen Joenk wove a collage of female artists to express the inner life of the tasters in scene changes. The same song orders the tasters to the dinner table for meal time, and this allows us to see the evolution of their job, from an honorable civic duty, to a laborious risk with little results on the horizon.  The lighting design by Christina Tang isolated the tasters on the barren set. The light piping was ominous and stark as it enclosed and highlighted the action onstage like a looming presence. 

The story isn’t set out of time, but rather in overlapping time to highlight the repetition of history. The young women fawn over Frank Sinatra, and then pull out their phones to take selfies; they compare each other’s beauty to Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, and then twerk to Madonna. The playwright’s (Kholos Brooks)  mixing of media and pop culture was effective because it would have been in the vernacular for young women at their age in different times. What was jarring was the inconsistent use of German words with a predominantly English text. One young woman would pose a question with the subject “your father,” and another would reply with “VATER” in a distinctly American accent. The ensemble would also exclaim “NEIN” and switch back to “no” within the same sentence. These instances stuck out because the variances in the script were timeless, but these variances in language felt foreign in the actors’ tongues. 

However, I fully acknowledge that this qualm may be entirely my own and only irksome to my own ears. What I know for certain is that we should all give the floor to these women who have been erased by time. On this stage they pose the important question and leave the floor open to debate: what is the best way to deal with danger and stress? Is the best way to fully examine or keep your mind preoccupied, to joke or cry? Not only can one not say for certain which is the best tactic, we also cannot be certain which reactions are best suited for which times. By asking the hard questions and admitting to the grey areas in life, this production has come one step closer to finding the truth and closure, because a question cannot be answered if not ever posed, and a life not laid to rest if never remembered. 

Hitler’s Tasters opens on July 5th and runs until July 14th at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie (9501 Skokie Boulevard, Skokie Il.) The run time of the show is 90 minutes with no intermission. Shows on Friday the 5th, Saturday the 6th, Friday the 12th, and Saturday the 13th begin at 8 pm; matinees on Sunday the 7th, Saturday the 13th, and Sunday the 14th begin at 2 pm; and weekday performances on Tuesday the 9th, Wednesday the 10th, and Thursday the 11th begin at 7:30 pm. Note that there is no 2 pm matinee on Saturday the 6th. Tickets range from $32 to $42 and can be bought by calling the box office at (847) 673-6300 and visiting their website www.NorthShoreCenter.org. 

For more information, visit theatreinchicago.com as well. 

Recommended 

Reviewed by Sophie Vitello