Theatre
Dance
Sound/Audio
Spoken Word
Leni Riefenstahl is a gifted artist who creates films for Hitler. This ultimately ruins her career, leading to her downfall.
See tickets below
Presented by: Jan Bolwell Handstand Productions
From: Te Whanganui-a-Tara | Wellington
Leni Riefenstahl was called ‘Hitler’s Pin-Up Girl’. A dancer, an actor and one of the most brilliant and innovative film makers of the twentieth century, she sold her soul to Hitler’s Third Reich and destroyed her career. This solo theatre performance by Jan Bolwell tells Riefenstahl’s story using text, music, dance and videography.
As a young and talented artist Riefenstahl was given the opportunity and the resources by Hitler to make films like Triumph of the Will on the 1933 Nuremberg Rally, regarded as one of the greatest propaganda films of all time, and Olympia, on the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which revolutionised the way athletic movement is filmed.
After the Second World War Riefenstahl was ostracised in Germany and never made another film until she was in her nineties. She reinvented herself as a skilled photographer and had major success in this medium with two best-selling books on the Nuba tribes in Sudan.
Supping with the Devil is a psychological study of a superb artist who becomes corrupted in her quest for power and fame. It is the story of a woman who was blinded by the charisma of a fascist leader, something we are all too familiar with in the present world. It is worth noting that there were 50 court cases taken against her throughout her life, and she won all of them. She was very skilled at telling her story the way she wanted it to be heard and understood.
In our play we delve below the surface into her state of mind, the myth making, the defensiveness, the blindness - often through the use of sound. What many people cannot forgive about Riefenstahl is that she never admitted her complicity with Hitler’s Third Reich.
Although this theatre work is set in the historical past, we believe it has contemporary relevance as the world witnesses the rise of autocracies and populist leaders, and the serious challenges to democracy in the 21st century.
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