Theater Review:

What do Klaus Kinski, Werner Herzog and Tom Waits have in common? Yes, they’re all masters in their artistic disciplines. But they also have each been involved in some sort of adaptation of Georg Buchner’s play “Woyzeck” (pronounced Voi-check).

Therefore, you’d think this would be a really cool play and an interesting view into the life and times of the political revolutionary who wrote it as well as the real person upon which the story is based, soldier Johann Woyzeck. Both lived in Germany in the early 1800s.

Unfortunately, in the hands of the Gangbusters Theatre Company at the Little Victory Theatre in Burbank, “Woyzeck” has become a laborious production suitable for parody. Or as my husband says, it ranks somewhere between traffic school and getting your wisdom teeth pulled.

The director and adapter of Buchner’s work, Bob McDonald, chose to create an adaptation more accessible to 21st-century audiences so we would not feel distanced from a period piece. This was a grave error. By taking this piece out of its natural realm of German Expressionism and old Berlin cabaret weirdness, it lost its soul.

The story is loosely based upon a sensational murder case involving Woyzeck and his common-law wife, Christine Woost, in Germany in 1821. Outraged that the jury condemned this man to death by beheading, Buchner wrote the play to shine a light on the mistreatment of this simple regiment man by the military and medical industries that ultimately drove him to an act of madness.

Woyzeck, played by Gangbusters veteran Christian Levatino, is a twitchy, paranoid mess of a man. He apparently got that way by having frequent medical experiments forced upon him, though this is somewhat unclear in the production. He is also talked down to by his captain (a buffoonish Allen Andrews) and harassed by his fellow soldiers to the point where he wails to his only friend about hearing mysterious sounds and being hounded by the Freemasons. Again, it is all so murky, it’s hard to tell if something was lost in the translation/adaptation or if it’s just bad drama.