Tom Fool at the Orange Tree Theatre
(Picture: Richard Davenport)There’s nothing so phoney in theatre as extreme realism, as this revival of German author Franz Xaver Kroetz’s grim 1978 play shows. Tom Fool is an anti-capitalist domestic drama, where drudgery and penny-pinching drive a husband, wife and teenage son apart in suburban Munich. It’s exactly as much fun as it sounds, though Diyan Zora’s production is not without merit.
Kroetz aims to capture the banality of working-class life. So Otto (Michael Shaeffer), a fitter on BMW’s factory line, Martha (Anna Francolini), a housewife, and son Ludwig (Jonah Rzeskiewicz), a layabout, watch telly, peel potatoes and bicker in clichés. The parents have aspirations for Ludwig but hector and humiliate him until he leaves.
