CAPTURE THE FLAG

“Rule one: Your body belongs to your nation.”

Toby Schmitz is obsessed with the Great Wars. Since childhood the actor, writer and director has maintained a (some would say morbid) fascination with that tumultuous period, in particular with the Third Reich and its reign of terror. The much lauded Schmitz attributes the origin of this preoccupation to his history teacher father, but says it is contemporary society’s seemingly insatiable hunger for films and literature about Nazism and the Holocaust that has fuelled his curiosity ever since.

In writing Capture the Flag, an ambitious and utterly compelling play about the fate of Hitler Youth soldiers and German civilians upon liberation, Schmitz was driven by a (presumably common) story his father had once told him about a Hitler Youth member so devoted to, “the cause” he had turned in his own parents for being, “traitors”. The perversion of childhood, innocence and family bonds is thus a central theme running through this haunting piece of new Australian theatre.

This will be Capture the Flag’s second run, following a successful season at the Old Fitzroy Theatre in 2007. This time Schmitz has assumed directorial duties as well, delivering a poignant and powerful production with a fine cast of young actors led by the increasingly impressive Robin Goldsworthy.

May 24-28, Riverside Theatre, cnr Church & Markets Sts, Parramatta, 8839 3399, riversideparramatta.com.au

BY NADINE COHEN