Leif Jurgensen, Gary Briggle, Patrick Bailey, and Laila Sahir Photo by Tony Nelson

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, by Bertolt Brecht, is Frank's current example of the sway theatre can have over an audience. The play is a cautionary tale about a mobster from the Bronx, Arturo Ui, who lands in prohibition-era Chicago with his lieutenant, Ernesto Roma. Ui sniffs out the culverts where corrupt individuals lurk (especially those needing to maintain a clean image), those only too glad to let him use his muscle to do their dirty work. After he has the goods on them, he spins the tables to gain power for himself.

First it's sniveling, glad-handing city alderman Dogsborough, then the shady Chicago Cauliflower Trust. Before long, his ill-gotten power is putting the squeeze on every grocery store in the city. But Ui's looking for a bigger slice of the pie, moving his squeeze play out to neighboring Cicero, and then ... there's a whole nation waiting for him to give them the "protection" he makes sure they need.

Ui's demeanor is, on the surface, polite and genteel (except when he goes apeshit), insisting that he wants to work with people, and that he abhors violence. Just one thing: He decides what you have to do to keep the violence he abhors–which mainly comes from the hands of his thugs–from your doorstep, and you can be sure it involves cash payments. When the law intervenes, which it does in a couple of raucous court scenes, Arturo Ui has a way of turning the case around so that someone else is the punk and he smells like a rose, though one with its thorns in plain sight.

Brecht wrote The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui over the course of eight years starting in 1933. That's when the Reichstag fire cemented the Nazi Party and their leader Adolf Hitler's power and prompted Brecht to leave his homeland for Denmark. He eventually emigrated to the United States, finishing the play in 1941 in Los Angeles. Due to "sensitivities" to the subject, he was unable to get it produced until 1958 and the first English production wasn't until 1961.

There is no mistaking that Brecht intended his fictional Arturo Ui to represent Hitler (though he also carries shades of Benito Mussolini, Al Capone, and Dutch Schultz), the Chicago Cauliflower Trust represents unfettered capitalism, and the "resistible rise" is the rapid ascent of the Third Reich, which–Brecht's title implies–might have been stopped. Ui's expansion of his realm from Chicago to much smaller Cicero has been likened to Hitler's Germany rolling over Austria. So, a history lesson.

But do we learn from the lessons of history? The play works disturbingly well as a parable for the rise of a faction within one of our major political parties, gaining control and operating as if they, and not 238 years of constitutional democracy, make the rules. If we cannot attribute our current state of affairs to crime, but certainly can cite heavy-handed, manipulative, and less than honest dealings. Arturo Ui would be gratified to see that his tactics have held up so well.

History lesson or not, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui is also a comedy–a very dark comedy, but still, chock full of satiric jabs and wordplay, making it a great entertainment. Under Wendy Knox's adroit direction, the humor is given full expression and the split-second pace of the characters' dialogues keeps us leaning in to catch every morsel, even as you may choke on some of the so-close-to-today's headlines and news personalities. The play uses a number of different devices that both set it in the period it is portraying–like vaudeville style placards carried across the stage to announce each scene and underscore the playfulness of Brecht's conception, whereby making sport out of hellish historical developments somehow makes us more able to absorb the dire warnings embedded in his work. As a work in Brecht's typical epic theatre style, it opens with a prologue led by a narrator (here called "announcer") who introduces the primary characters and sets the tone for what is to follow.

Thirteen actors comprise the cast, playing many more characters. Gary Briggle, in a tour-de-force, is the resistible dictator, Arturo Ui, with a marvelous Bronx-Italian accent, a trace of Robert De Niro's gangster portrayals, and, especially when he intends to come off being sincere, a resemblance to a White House occupant who will remain unnamed. He is backed up brilliantly by E.J. Subkoviak as Ernesto Roma, the kingpin's lieutenant who walks a fine line between absolute fealty to the boss and stepping out to risk making some decisions on his own. Subkoviak conveys Roma's penchant to bypass reason and go straight to the action. Briggle and Subkoviak, by the way, are the only two cast members not asked to play multiple roles, and the interplay between them makes their long-time affiliation, with roots in the Bronx, feel authentic.

Julia Nickerson is hilarious as Emanuele Giri, displaying a psychopathic demeanor that works under his trade name, Manny the Jester, while Patrick Bailey portrays florist and hit man Giuseppe Givola, who goes under the name "Joey Flowers," with an alarming penchant for knocking people off. Jim Ramlet is perfection as the once upright, now deeply compromised alderman, Dogsborough, and David Coral comes through with a terrific Chicago accent and an attitude that sees virtue in whatever gets the Cauliflower Trust what they need as cauliflower kingpin Clark.

David Beukema excels in a number of roles, including the jovial announcer who opens the show in rhyme, Dogsborough's droll butler, and a has-been actor hired by Ui to teach the gangster how to deport himself with class when speaking to a crowd, the better to conceal his venom. Laila Sahir and Leif Jurgensen are convincing as a leading couple from Cicero determined to keep the menace Ui has inflicted on Chicago from infesting their fair city. Sahir is also on her game as a public defender, chair of an investigation into corruption, and a shipyard accountant whose testimony could sink the rackets. Georgia Doolittle has just the right husky voice and "who cares?" attitude as a gangland moll.

Design and tech credits for this production are first rate. Joe Stanley is responsible for the set, which utilizes vintage tables and chairs carried on and off to create each location. Andrea Gross' costume designs pick up the play's time period with exaggerated flourishes, in keeping with the playwright's penchant for stylizing storylines and dialogue. Tony Stoeri's lighting design works well to focus the audience's attention, to alter the moods, and to simulate a hail of machine gun bullets and a warehouse fire. Owen Roth has devised a sound design that maintains clarity to follow the dialogue, with its rapid-fire delivery and accents, and sound effects throughout the show.

Frank often finds non-traditional sites for each of its plays, but plans for such a venue fell through this time, and the production is being staged in Frank's home base rehearsal studio. That actually works pretty well, with labyrinthian corridors leading from the street to the studio suggesting a sequestered underworld lair, and the industrial blank wall covered with a tarp with streaks that look vaguely blood stained.

The delay in finding a venue also pushed the production date back from early 2024. The intervening national election, and the fallout that has followed, will give audience members a different feeling about how Arturo Ui relates to current realities than it would have 18 months ago.

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui runs through November 23, 2025, at the Frank Theatre Studio, 2637 27th Avenue South, #208, Minneapolis MN. For tickets and information, please visit franktheatre.org or call 612-729-3760.

Playwright: Bertolt Brecht, as adapted by Bruce Norris; Director: Wendy Knox ; Set Design: Joe Stanley; Costume Design: Andrea Gross; Lighting Design: Tony Stoeri; Sound Design: Owen Roth; Props Design: Abbee Warmboe; Stage Managers: Spencer Putney, Bob Beverage, Amy Creuziger

Cast: Patrick Bailey (Giuseppe Givola, aka Joey Flower), David Beukema (Announcer/Ted Rag/Butler/Actor/Grocer), Gary Briggle (Arturo Ui), David Coral (Clark/Prosecutor), Georgia Doolittle (Dockdaisy/Short Gunman/ Grocer), Jonathan Feld (Caruther/Young Dogsborough/Bodyguard), Christy Johnson (Flake/Hook/Inna/Grocer), Leif Jurgensen (Butcher/Judge/Gunman/Ignatius Dullfeet/Grocer), Julia Nickerson (Emanuele Giri, aka Manny the Jester), Jim Ramlet (Dogsborough), Laila Sahir (Bowl/O'Casey/Public Defender/Betty Dullfeet/Grocer), E.J. Subkoviak (Ernesto Roma), Diego Symouksavanh (Defendant/Grocer).