What should we do with artworks created by monsters? That’s the central question of this laboriously discursive play by Marius von Mayenburg, about siblings who inherit what appears to be an early painting by Hitler. It’s also part of a wider movement among German authors to foreground the Führer in discussions of the nation’s guilt over the Holocaust.
The disputed watercolour taints every character in Nachtland with greed, prejudice or perverse sexual behaviour. One finds his arm locked in a Nazi salute after he’s scratched by the frame. Given a knowingly absurdist production by Patrick Marber, the play is less subtle than that 2022 Channel 4 show in which comedian Jimmy Carr debated whether artworks by Hitler, Picasso and Rolf Harris should be destroyed.
