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Friday March 16, 2007

‘Good German’ poses moral dilemmas in new Marin production

by dan pine
staff writer

In the new Marin Theatre Company production of “The Good German,” Darren Bridgett plays the bad German.

However, serious student of dramatic motivation that he is, Bridgett (who isn’t Jewish) would say it’s not really that well defined. Though over the course of the play his character, Siemi, turns from genial toady to steel-cold Nazi, Bridgett sees him as following the worst in human nature, but human nature nonetheless.

“He doesn’t start out as a big believer in the Nazi Party,” says Bridgett. “He joins, he serves his country, he makes one little compromise after another so he ends up a tortured figure.”

“The Good German” is now playing through April 15 at Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley.

Though David Wiltse’s play shares a title with a poorly received George Clooney film from last year, it bears no relation to it. Set in the years just before the outbreak of World War II, this “Good German” tells the story of a middle-class German couple that takes in a young man who lost his family in a fire.

Turns out that young man is Jewish, a secret revealed reluctantly as Germany descends into the madness of the Third Reich. Bridgett’s character of Siemi, a friend to the couple, becomes a deadly efficient functionary in the Nazi military, helping to send Jews to their deaths in the Holocaust. As his suspicions about the young boarder increase, so does the dramatic tension.

Let’s just say hilarity does not ensue.

“As an actor it’s a pretty interesting part,” says Bridgett. “He has the biggest arc. He starts off seeming like a pretty nice guy. He’s a casual bigot. He doesn’t know much about Jews and has no passion for being anti-Semitic. He just goes along with everyone else without a lot of thought. What the playwright is trying to say is that moral fiber is based on convictions. Siemi has opinions, but he mistakes them for convictions.”

The play has sparked quite a lot of discussion among the cast and director Kent Nicholson. “One of the best things about rehearsal was we had time to talk about what’s going on in this play. It’s a play about ideas, and when we dug in to it, we saw it’s a jumping off point for so much.”

Bridgett has a long history with Bay Area theater, and has appeared in many other serious plays, some of them classics like “Ah! Wilderness,” “Hamlet,” “Arms and the Man” and “She Stoops to Conquer.” Among the many companies he’s worked with are, ACT, the Magic Theatre, Cal Shakes and the San Jose Stage Company. He’s also no stranger to Marin Theatre Company audiences, having previously appeared in “Displaced,” “Fortune,” “The Last Schwartz,” “The Woman in Black” and “The Turn of the Screw.”

The Palo Alto native started acting at age 8 in children’s theater productions at the Lucie Stern Community Center. After graduating from Palo Alto High School he went on to pursue acting more seriously while attending U.C. Berkeley. After college, he started landing parts locally, and is one of the lucky Bay Area actors to make a living on the stage without having to go into exile in New York or Los Angeles. He currently lives in San Francisco.

And while he hopes audiences will flock to “The Good German” and other future plays he stars in, Bridgett says one genre of the theater doesn’t quite work for him: musicals.

As a public service, he states categorically, “No one should ever have to pay to hear me sing.”

“The Good German” plays 8 p.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 7:30 Wednesdays and 7 p.m. Sundays, now through April 15. There will be some matinee performances weekends and Wednesdays. All performances are at Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley. Tickets: $19-$47. Information: (415) 388-5208 or online at www.marintheatre.org.

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