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Published: 19 January, 2012
by JULIA RANK

Towards the end of Count Oederland, the Murderer laments that nobody called him by his name in prison.

The very fact that playwright Max Frisch doesn’t grant him, or indeed most of his characters, a name complements the theme of anonymity that resonates throughout this claustrophobic thriller.

Cerberus Theatre’s British premiere of the Swiss playwright’s Kafkaesque 1951 play, translated by Michael Bullock, is dark and disturbing.

The angular, monochrome set adds to the tension, as does the marching leitmotif for the Count, which is perhaps played a little too often.

Count Oederland depicts a public prosecutor, Martin, who becomes obsessed with the case of a murder.

The Murderer seems like a perfectly pleasant young man who has killed his banking colleague with an axe.

While the world scratches its head over how this could have happened, Martin identifies with the monotony and boredom that has driven The Murderer to commit this crime.

Frisch’s narrative sees Martin dream of taking on the role of the legendary Count Oederland, a folk-tale figure in his native Switzerland.

He hides behind this disguise as he leads an insurgency against the status quo – by encouraging the butchering of random people.

However, this production, directed by Christopher Loscher, is convoluted and only confuses an already complicated plot further.

Rather than make clear the boundaries between time-frames and characters, Loscher focuses his dramatic pauses on comic sequences, presuming the audience understands exactly what is going on.

The humour is undoubtedly part of the post-war, Theatre of the Absurd genre. However, Loscher has not succeeded in making Frisch’s complex plot accessible.

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