‘The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui’ at Classic Stage Company

Raúl Esparza . Photo: Joan Marcus

What does cauliflower resemble?  Fossilized flowers?  Dead algae?  Brain tissue?  Perhaps Bertolt Brecht had these and others in mind creating a "Cauliflower War" as the cataclysmic event of The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, his deliberately unfunny lampooning of Adolph Hitler.  Brecht's protest play is now at the Classic Stage Company with a mesmerizing Raúl Esparza in the title role in John Doyle's uneven production. Brecht's inspiration for his 1941 play was Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.  Released one year before Arturo UI's premiere, Chaplin's intentionally funny film sends-up both Hitler and Mussolini.  (Chaplin not only resembled Hitler, they were born days apart.)  Unlike The

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