Despite its gloomy subject and dramatic revelations of the characters’ personal tragedies, “A Snowfall in Berlin,” at times, makes the audience laugh out loud.
Unraveling on the stage of Teatro Latea, “A Snowfall in Berlin” is a murder mystery, written by Don Nigro, directed by Shaun Peknic told to us in a variety of accents: British, Irish, Russian, Italian and Mexican. These are the voices of actors from different ethnic backgrounds, who got together to produce a movie about a young woman, drowning in a bathtub.
Ironically, the actress who plays the drowning character actually drowns in the bathtub, making us, as well as Detective Mulligan (Don Carter) wonder whether it was coincidence, or someone’s malicious intent. As the investigation goes on, masks are pulled off, and we discover underneath the actors’ humorous composure deep wounds, left by tragic events in their past.
As their accents tell us, everyone involved in the movie production is an immigrant, trying to make it in New York City. We meet Natasha (Tatyana Kot), the director, a tall redhead from Russia. Although her sphere of expertise is dance, she apparently has natural talent for filmmaking, for her brilliant suggestions often make scenes more realistic and effective. She is, therefore, the heart of the production, and a goddess in her own world; the rest of the crew admires and worships her. She is also the one to introduce the theme of fate, or an unknown hand that stages people’s lives. Characterized by her lengthy monologues about life being a movie, to which God contributes, Natasha projects a made-up persona, behind which we do not see her true self. She keeps her distance from others, and seems to care little about the crew members, as long as the job is done.
Although Natasha is, undoubtedly, a compelling character, the main focus of the play remains on the murder victim, Rosa (Brandi Bravo). Making us wonder about the cause of her death, she spends the whole time naked in the bathtub in the left corner of the black-and-white checkered stage, so we only get to see her shoulder-length curly hair, her small fair shoulders and thin neck. She embodies desire. Her charm drew people to her when she was alive, and curiosity does not allow anyone to let her go off their minds even after she is gone from this world.
And in general, for a dead woman, Rosa is quite active on stage, namely in her colleagues’ memories and thoughts, as well as in Mulligan’s imagination. The use of flashbacks allows the playwright to push the boundaries of a limited setting (most of the action takes place in the brownstone where the crew members live together) and leaves us with the feeling that we got to know the characters well.
The title of the play’s funniest character goes to Emilia (Jessica Vera), Natasha’s assistant director, whose Italian accent at times sounds rather Polish. Frequently taking to a bottle, Emilia speaks her mind boldly, and her witty remarks entertain and distract the viewers. “God is like Alfred Hitchcock,” she says, “he appears in all of his movies, but if you’re not looking for him, you can miss him.”
Not the complaining type, Emilia accepts life as it is. She did not even object to Natasha’s taking over her position as the director because, as she believes, when making art, one often has to give up one’s own ambitions and follow the more superior talent. But even Emilia, as we learn towards the end of the play, harbors disappointments in her past and is not than just the carefree chatterbox she seems to be.
Planting the clues to the mystery throughout the play, the playwright teases us with some, but never gives enough for us to guess what happened, so the revelation in the end comes unexpected. As we scratch the surface and discover the characters’ true faces little by little, we stay on the same page with Mulligan, driven by the desire to learn the truth and embarked on an adventurous journey, similar to watching a movie, or being in one. As Natasha puts it, “Everything is a movie; the trick is to understand what movie you’re in.”
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