Isto é um Hitler Genuíno

While clearing out their recently deceased father’s house, Nicola and Philipp discover a painting they had no knowledge of. The canvas bears a signature: A. Hitler. What to do? Nicola wants to sell it, Philipp wants to keep it, while Judith, Philipp’s Jewish wife, wants to burn it. Out of this unanticipated family dilemma, Marius von Mayenburg has created the play Isto É um Hitler Genuíno [This Is A Genuine Hitler]. In this timely endeavour, Mayenburg places the mourning of a family into a “night land” (a possible translation of Nacthland, the neologism that makes up the play’s original German title), so as to bring into question the relationships between the private and the collective, between the Holocaust-haunted past and the present. The play also offers a complex and sometimes humorous reflection on art, its value and the ever-recurring problem of separating the work from the artist. This text from 2022 marks the return of the stage director João Cardoso and the ASSéDIO company to the work of this German playwright, after their production of the absurd and pitilessly comic O Feio [The Ugly One].