Review: Woyzeck, Büchner’s Dark Prophecy, in an Old Sweater Factory

He’s a soldier who has fathered a child out of wedlock. He has taken on multiple side-hustles to support his small family. And he’s about to get cucked by a hotter, richer man. Is this the description of a guy about to be black pilled by the Internet manosphere? Possibly, but it is also a summary of the circumstances facing the title character of Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck, which the playwright left unfinished at the time of his death in 1837. It is now receiving a gritty, sweaty production from the intrepid outer-borough troupe Adult Film in the ruins of an old sweater factory in deepest, darkest Ridgewood.

The company’s artistic director, Ryan Czerwonko, plays Franz Woyzeck. Clad in olive green ranger panties, he cops a feel of Marie (Madeline Bernhard) as they sing the hymn “Beautiful Savior” with the rest of the cast. Instantly, she’s pregnant, dramatically giving birth to an accordion, a tiny breathy being that must be clothed and fed. Woyzeck’s pay as a soldier is not enough, so he takes on menial jobs for the Captain (Randall Jaynes), who lectures Franz on his lack of morals as the poorer man shaves the richer (Sweeney Todd would have known what to do in this moment).

Franz has also entered into a contract with the Doctor (Megan Metrikin) in which he is to consume only peas for several months as part of a scientific experiment. She becomes enraged when she witnesses him relieving himself against a wall, refusing to accept the call of nature as an excuse. She’s a doctor and a scientist, but knows that in the liberal West, one law trumps even nature: “You signed a contract, Woyzeck, whereby all your piss is mine.” Metrikin makes a meal out of this role, reaching operatic sexual ecstasy as she takes the chiseled soldier’s pulse.

Poverty and malnutrition certainly contribute to Woyzeck’s fraying mental health, but the thing that sends him over the edge is Marie’s affair with the Drum Major (Taylor Petracek, wearing a Joy Division t-shirt and the mischievous smile of a man who will show you a great time while ruining your credit score). “You’re an animal,” she tells him, “I can’t get enough of you.” After he spectacularly loses a fight to this stronger man, Franz looks for alternative retribution.

Nearly two centuries later, Büchner’s tale of the meat grinder of modernity speaks to us more forcefully than ever. Some of this is the late John Christopher Jones’s translation, which smartly eschews the academic politesse so many English translations. But it’s also director Seth Bockley’s staging, which exudes mechanical danger from the moment we enter the theater and see two cinder blocks swinging from pulleys. That DIY fly system will later be used to lift the unvarnished wooden chassis that is the central piece of Josh Barilla’s mean-looking set. Barilla also did the costumes, streetwear that looks simultaneously cheap and erotic. Nick Cozzo’s lighting springs naturally from the venue. Actors turn on institutional tube lights, pulling the strings and cranking the gears of the machine that will ultimately destroy them.

Musician Stephee Bonifacio creates a live soundscape for the 70-minute play, with the other performers augmenting the band. Bockley seems to want to blur the lines between rock concert and play, but this is only partially successful. The performance of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs song “Heads Will Roll,” prompted by Woyzeck’s observation of an execution block in his first line, makes textual sense in a playful way. But at the performance I attended, the concept devolved into Woyzeck imploring the audience to get up and dance, a big ask in an unairconditioned space in late July.

Even in the sweltering heat, the performances are nothing less than committed. Bernhard captures Marie’s hunger, as well as her growing sense of hopelessness. Jaynes is infuriatingly smug as the Captain. Trevor Clarkson is a beguiling, unsettling presence in the dual roles of Woyzeck’s buddy Andres and the Idiot. As the latter, he dons a cheap dress and attempts to fit his first in his mouth, a popular party trick along Wyckoff Avenue.

Czerwonko leads with a fascinatingly nuanced take on Franz, his slyly arched eyebrows and clear rebuttal of the Captain’s bourgeois morality betraying real intelligence lurking beneath the jarhead façade. When he says the sky is on fire, it’s not the raving of a mad man, but someone who has recently stepped outside and smelled the putrid summer air. He is terrifying not because he is mad, but because he is so recognizably sane. And in a modern world that requires mass delusion to function, that is the worst thing you can be.