by Gerhart Hauptmann
Directed by Christopher Rolls
Designed by Aaron Marsden
Lighting by David Plater
Sound Design by Mercedes Maresca

The Company -
Leontine/Frau Motes: Suzanne Heathcote
Frau Wolff: Joanna Bacon
Julius Wolff: Charlie Buckland
Adelheid: Stephanie Thomas
Wulkow: David Brett
Motes: Anthony Keech
Mittledorf: Mike Aherne
Glasenapp: Jot Davies
Wehrhahn: David Birrell
Kruger: Roger Braban
Dr Fleischer: John Cummins

[ rediscoveries season ]

20 June - 15 July 2006

There's no such thing as dirty money…

Washerwoman Frau Wolff runs her family like her business, ready to turn any crisis into a quick buck. When she hears that someone is willing to pay hard cash for a beaver-fur coat, and better yet, knows where to find one, she's soon counting her luck. Meanwhile, Police Superintendent Wehrhan has more than petty pilfering to worry about. He's fixed on flushing out the Liberals, Democrats and free-thinkers causing the real stink in the neighbourhood. Set in the Berlin suburbs at the end of the 19th Century, Hauptmann's wittily observed and strikingly relevant working-class comedy is full of vivid characters, humanity and satire.

Written by Gerhart Hauptmann in 1893, Der Biberpelz, 'a Thieves Comedy in Four Acts' came after the success of Hauptmann's best-known naturalistic plays, Before Daybreak (1889) and The Weavers (1893). Son of a hotel owner, after failing at the local gymnasium Hauptmann was shipped off to his uncle's estate where he got to know the local peasants. Forays into fine art and poetry led him abroad until ill-health forced him back to Germany where married an heiress who's wealth enabled him to pursue a life of letters. In Berlin he mixed with a group of progressive intellectuals. His first play, Before Daybreak, caused a stir for its shocking realism and focus on a community of working people. Later plays departed from naturalism into realms of fantasy, myth and folklore. Hauptmann was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1912. He died in 1946.

Directed by Christopher Rolls who is currently Staff Director at the Royal National Theatre. He was last year's Resident Assistant Director at the Donmar Warehouse.

Joanna Bacon plays Frau Wolff. Her theatre credits include major roles at the Royal Court, Ipswich, Sheffield Crucible, Manchester, Salisbury, West Yorkshire Playhouse and film including Love Actually and Last Orders; David Birrell’s has been seen at the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company as well in Chicago and Jerry Springer The Opera (West End); Roger Braban has been seen in The Lady in the Van (West End), Chimes at Midnight (Chichester Festival Theatre); Charlie Buckland has worked all over the country including Nottingham, Windsor, Newcastle-under-Lyme, on National Tour and in the West End; Jot Davies’ theatre appearances include Who’s The Daddy? (King’s Head); Theatre) Suzanne Heathcote has been seen in Tartuffe (National Theatre); Anthony Keetch’s theatre appearances include One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Sweet Panic (West End). The cast also includes recent RADA graduate John Cummins, and three actors returning to the Finborough Theatre - Mike Aherne, recently seen in Loyalties, Stephanie Thomas, recently seen in I Wish to Die Singing, and David Brett - recently seen in Lark Rise to Candleford – who has also been worked for 7;84, English Shakespare Company, Manchester Library, Birmingham Rep, Young Vic, Oxford Stage Company, and who was one of the founding members of the chart-topping group, The Flying Pickets.

The Press on The Beaver Coat
“This little-performed satirical comedy by the Nobel prize-winning German playwright Gerhart Hauptmann continues the Finborough’s Rediscoveries season…the theatre deserves credit for giving a work by this rarely produced dramatist an airing”
Sam Marlowe, The Times

“Gerhart Hauptmann is almost totally ignored in Britain. Yet, along with Ibsen, Zola and Becque, he was a key part of the late-19th-century Naturalist movement. And this play, written in 1893 and vigorously translated and directed by Christopher Rolls, is not only entertaining in itself but casts a long shadow.”
Michael Billington, The Guardian

“If there had been soap operas in the late nineteenth century, Gerhart Hauptmann would surely have revelled in them. What is most striking about this ‘thieves’ comedy’ is how terrifically contemporary it feels.”
Emma John, Time Out

“Christopher Rolls’ translation and direction give Wolff’s world a well-observed intimacy that suggests you could be watching a scene from any household, any time”
Emma John, Time Out

“Hauptmann’s large community of neighbours is excellently represented by the 12-strong ensemble. Even the most minor characters are scrupulously rendered and Rolls marshals them with a light comic touch.”
Emma John, Time Out

“David Birrell brings a stentorian, Branagh-like energy to police superintendent Wernhahn”
Emma John, Time Out

“John Cummins impresses as poor, blinking Dr Fleischer”
Emma John, Time Out

“Joanna Bacon makes Frau Wolff one of those characters any feminist would give thanks for, a woman with a brain and the balls to use it…. what Bacon does most impressively is to combine the two aspects of Wolff’s character to produce a profoundly sympathetic woman who, for all her shrewdness and petty criminality, is still a loving mother figure.”
Emma John, Time Out

“Hauptmann's play is both lively peasant comedy and political parable”
Michael Billington, The Guardian

“As Rolls's revival shows, he was a vital link between classic comedy and Brechtian drama whose rediscovery is overdue.”
Michael Billington, The Guardian

“Christopher Rolls’ sumptuous production of this minor German classic is a little gem”
Jonathan Dory, Rogues and Vagabonds

“Extravagantly staged…beautifully acted, this is close-up theatre at its most compelling.”
Jonathan Dory, Rogues and Vagabonds

“Joanna Bacon plays Wolff, a Lady Macbeth who schemes against other people's possessions, with just the right look of "who, me?" innocence.”
Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard

“The two scenes - in this "Thieves' Comedy in Four Acts" - around her kitchen table zing with complicity.”
Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard

“Christopher Rolls's intricate production”
Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard

“Christopher Rolls’s production of his own new version is enjoyable.”
Sam Marlowe, The Times

“Christopher Rolls’ translation is a masterpiece: subtle, tasteful and wry.”
Jonathan Dory, Rogues and Vagabonds

“A welcome sign of bold fringe theatre programming.”
Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard

“Written in 1893, it was a forerunner of German Naturalism, and exhibits the socialist leanings of its author…its character comedy is nicely observed”
Sam Marlowe, The Times

“…Portrayed with a sharp wit…”
Sam Marlowe, The Times

“Frau Wolff, the wily washerwoman at the play’s centre, is a kind of forebear of Brecht’s Mother Courage (Brecht himself later directed the play for the Berliner Ensemble).”
Sam Marlowe, The Times

“Joanna Bacon is an excellent bright-eyed, hard-headed Frau Wolff”
Sam Marlowe, The Times

“Frau Wolff…This is a gift of a character for any actor and it is difficult to imagine any actor playing her better than Joanna Bacon.”
Jonathan Dory, Rogues and Vagabonds

“Its heroine is in the great tradition of wily theatrical servants. As played by Joanna Bacon, she is a gutsy, sleeves-rolled-up fighter”
Michael Billington, The Guardian

“The funniest performance…comes from David Birrell, who plays Wehrhahn as a puffed-up smoothie who sees himself as king of the local castle and is so busy hunting for reds under the bed that he barely notices the bed itself has been stolen. “
Michael Billington, The Guardian

“Roger Braban as the apoplectic Kruger, Anthony Keetch as a corrupt journalist and David Brett as a devious bargeman lend good support.”
Michael Billington, The Guardian

“David Brett’s Wulkow in particular offered a nice line in long-suffering hang-dog”
Jonathan Dory, Rogues and Vagabonds

“Played touchingly by Roger Braban”
Jonathan Dory, Rogues and Vagabonds

“John Cummins’ superbly drawn Dr Fleischer”
Jonathan Dory, Rogues and Vagabonds

“David Birrell in particular makes Wehrhahn a nasty little despot wielding his pathetic power with disturbing zeal”
Sam Marlowe, The Times

“Anthony Keetch is creepily compelling”
Sam Marlowe, The Times

“The elegant dance of greed, deceit and self-interest…it’s diverting to watch”
Sam Marlowe, The Times

“The Finborough, rejoicing in its theatre-in-the-round incarnation, offers the audience unparalleled proximity to the actors.”
Jonathan Dory, Rogues and Vagabonds

“The Beaver Coat is swift and purposeful. (One associates the nineteenth century canon with lengthy, arduous works yet The Beaver Coat romps home in about ninety minutes)”
Jonathan Dory, Rogues and Vagabonds

“Brecht was a great admirer of the play, and you can see why: I'd even guess that Brecht, who was a bit of a magpie himself, incorporated Frau Wolff's mercenary survival instinct and battles on behalf of her family into the epic figure of Mother Courage.”
Michael Billington, The Guardian

“Wehrhahn, who embodies the myopia of minor officialdom…anticipates the bourgeois dupe in Max Frisch's The Fire Raisers who watches as a pair of arsonists stash gasoline barrels in his attic.”
Michael Billington, The Guardian

“This play gives us the best of all worlds – the industry’s most excellent in a setting of unrivalled intimacy.”
Jonathan Dory, Rogues and Vagabonds