Review: The Dasslers, Bridewell Theatre

Fraternal partnerships are often a doomed cause. The Kinks. Oasis. The Jonas Brothers. It’s not just musicians who are subject to the curse, though, as the new play The Dasslers proves; shoemaking can be just as dramatic a backdrop for a familial breakdown.

While the Dassler Brothers may not be a household name, the company’s offspring, Adidas and Puma, certainly are. Jamie Radford’s The Dasslers, taking place over the course of a single fraught night, lays out the events that led to the birth of the two brands, each run by one of the brothers.

Adi (Edward Tarling) is so focused on optimising his shoe designs that he seems to forget the business aspect of it all, recalling trainers and changing orders to the annoyance of his customers. Rudy (Finn Samuels), on the other hand, is all about money and fame. When their lawyer Hans (Matteo Caporusso) arrives with news that a big American client will drop them if they don’t determine which of them will take authority over the company, fissures in the brothers’ relationship destabilise the firm and their family. Their respective wives, Kathe (Lula Marsh) and Friedl (Siân Elissa), are the opposites of the two men – Kathe is outgoing and outspoken, while Friedl is slightly more long-suffering.

In its early scenes, The Dasslers’ drama is paired with a pleasant levity. As the stakes heighten, that levity fades, leaving the production feeling slightly one-note. Once things ramp up, aside from a brief interlude starring the brothers’ mother (a scene-stealingly comic Anne Rutter), they hit a ceiling and stay there, without anywhere to go. After a while, the energy lags; there’s no way for the cast to keep the action as fraught as the story requires. More variety in the clashes between characters could add some texture, and a minor addition that might help provide some light and shade would be music, particularly between scenes.

There are moments of real brightness in the script; when the two couples are arguing with one another, their lines overlap, the audience’s focus being pulled from one side of the stage to another. The play is set in the aftermath of World War Two. Allusions to the horror of the all-too-recent conflict are also sometimes striking, particularly Friedl’s recollections of watching concentration camp liberation films.

At other points, though, it leans too far into ‘hey, do you remember this?’ storytelling, wherein characters recount events to one another for the sake of the audience. With a chamber piece like this, where there is little obvious context, it can be hard to get exposition in neatly, but the continuous retellings get tiring after a while – all the action is happening in the past, and we are getting it second hand.

Aside from the story itself, which is fascinating, The Dasslers seeks to explore ideas of complicity and choice in the face of powerful forces. Here, that’s the Nazis, but it can be uncomfortably transposed onto any period of history. Adi and Rudy have both done things that implicate them in Nazi activity, and both (implicitly or explicitly) condemn the other for being a party member. That’s where the crux of the drama lies, beyond company ownership; this is a tale of betrayal.

The cast members are all strong, well-rehearsed and with good chemistry, bringing the interpersonal and moral conflicts to life. While there is space to develop nuance in its storytelling. The Dasslers effectively tells a fascinating tale while examining the importance of personal responsibility in horrific conditions.

Writer: Jamie Radford
Director: Sapphire Shoferpoor
Producers: Jamie Radford & Éabha Fitzpatrick
Lighting designer: James Jackson

The Dasslers has completed its run of performances at the Bridewell Theatre.