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I can’t help but think this German comedy – by Roland Schimmelpfennig, presented by ATC and the Orange Tree – has been a bit spoilered by the accompanying press and publicity materials, which has all strongly built it up as a topical play about the resurgence of the far right.
And it is, but very little of that kicks in until the final quarter. Before that it’s an almost Ayckbourn-ish social comedy, loosely centred on the hapless, nervous, uptight Albert (an enjoyable Dominic Rowan), who becomes increasingly freaked out when his petulant mother-in-law Corinna (an appropriately obnoxious Kate Fahy) turns up one Christmas with Rudolph (Nicholas Le Prevost, melliflous and unsettling in the night’s stand-out performance), a courteous older gentleman she met on the train.
Gradually Rudolph worms his way into the family’s affections, dropping in the odd seemingly harmless opinion – ‘We have to find the way to a place where the community is still a community’ – intermingled with more sinister comments that may or may not be the hallucinatory byproduct of the numerous pills Albert consumes. By the end Albert is confused and, without his glasses, isolated from the group as he attempts to banish Rudolph.
It’s a very plausible allegory for the means by which fascism comes as a friend first, and certainly depressingly timely. Part of that plausibility, though, comes from the sheer amount of time that ‘Winter Solstice’ spends as a comedy about a dysfunctional family pratting around at Christmas, with Rudolph largely benign. Schimmelpfennig’s USP here is to substantially have the action narrated by his cast, who tell us what is happening rather than show us. It’s like a farce without any action, as we’re informed about various scrapes and faux pas – Albert’s allergy to the Christmas tree; his mistress showing up at an inopportune moment – rather than seeing them. Meanwhile Ramin Gray’s production is entirely set around a few drab office desks, covered in banal tat.
The effect is monumentally deadpan and often wryly amusing, greatly enlivened by the verbal fireworks of the excellent cast. It can still be hard work, though, dry as a turkey as it deliberately makes its conventional comedy more difficult while holding back from throwing in the sort of political red meat you're expecting. There’s something rather constipated about it, 90 minutes of straining before the devastating shitshow of the last half hour.