Franz Xaver Kroetz's short, muscular dramas of German working-class life, are suddenly back in fashion. Through the Leaves begins a brief West End run later this month, and the Arcola's ambitious German season sees a revival of Kroetz's 1975 play, The Nest, memorably staged at the Bush back in the mid-1980s.
Martha and Kurt are obviously fond of each other and looking forward to being parents. But parenthood is expensive and Kurt's job as a HGV driver doesn't pay well. Fortunately, as the couple keep on reminding each other proudly, Kurt is the boss's blue-eyed boy: whenever there is any overtime, it is Kurt who is first in line. So when the boss says "jump", Kurt jumps, with potentially tragic consequences for the little family.
Kroetz is examining the attitudes that lead to the Holocaust, but his play is also taking a critical look at the post-war German economic miracle and the rise of capitalist consumerism. Kurt and Martha start defining themselves by what they own. As Martha pathetically points out, as their world starts to fall apart, they were going to get a new television soon.
What lifts the play above simplistic socialist parable is the style in which it is written. The two plays that it most closely resembles are Edward Bond's Saved and Georg Buchner's Woyzeck. These are not naturalistic plays, and neither is The Nest, which is written in a style probably best-described as hyper-naturalism.
Director Elen Bowman makes some interesting choices (using an on-stage percussionist) and some silly ones (including a film of Kurt's nightmare). But she sticks too closely to a naturalistic style, and the production ultimately fails because of a lack of nerve - the extended scene where Kurt dumps toxic waste in a local lake is over in a trice, and as it is not clear what he is dumping there is no tension in the subsequent scene. A waste of a good play.
· Until April 28. Box office: 020-7503 1646.
