Menacing allure in The Know's 'Camp Siegfried'

By Noah Moore

Two campers share beers and find they have feelings for eachother--despite the familiar premise, Camp Siegfried by Bess Wohl is anything but safe. The Know Theatre kicked off its 27th season with a show that pulses and pushes boundaries, telling the story of two teens in an alt-right American Nazi camp. The Know's new artistic director, Bridget Leak, has created a stunning production which excitingly begins her tenure.

Camp Siegfried is a 2021 play by Bess Wohl, playwright of Grand Horizons if you caught it at ETC last season, which uses its aforementioned premise to display the haunting allure of fascism through an innocent lens. The two actors, named just Him and Her, spend time chopping wood and flirting on the dock, all the while their surroundings give greater and greater way to Nazism. 'Her' practices her German, while 'Him' teaches her the ropes of camp. That such a terrifying rhetoric is set in the confines of something so familiar--a summer camp--makes it all the more impactful. Though billed as a historical fiction, the titular camp did exist on Long Island in the 1930s, which makes the story resonate even harder.

Leak's direction is minimalistic, yet powerful. With a small wooden dock surrounded by black curtains, she draws the focus even harder to the story in an already-gloriously-intimate space. At a certain moment, long white curtains in five distinct blocks are pulled across stage for a moment of startling projections. In others' hands this could be gimmicky, but Leak is careful to not overuse these elements and when she does, they are chilling. Transitions were choreographed and set to German polka music and the show seemingly pulled the audience onto that wooden dock with them. If you haven't seen a show in this intimate theatre, now is the time.

In the two-person cast (with two understudies) are Katie Scarlett as Her, and Aaron Schilling as Him. The two's back-and-forth jabs and slow unfurling of their feelings were incredible. I have had the fortune of seeing both actors perform before (Scarlett in Wrappings by Imbocca Performance, and Schilling in shows dating back to high school) and I loved how they lost themselves in their characters. The nuances and naivete of youth were critical to showing just how fascism allures those searching for belonging. The two's final scene, set on a beach, could be mistaken for melancholy until you step back and realize the context--Her seemingly searching for a way out, and Him knowingly stuck within.

The minimalism did not detract from some stunning uses of sound and light. In particular, the far-off polka music by sound designed by Doug Borntrager and slow lighting fades by lighting designer Marly Wooster created a sense of place that almost felt welcoming-- much like the camp felt to the characters. The costumes by designer Noelle Wedig-Johnson complimented the other elements nicely, with some familiar 1930s garbs and camper uniforms.

The show runs a brisk 90 minutes, but never once loses your focus. The play is no straight-shot toward its themes, but it meanders enough for us to understand the characters, and devastate ourselves by their circumstances. This show has everything I've come to love at the Know--it's intimate, it's funny until it's not, it's dark, and it's not something I had seen before. Camp Siegfried runs through September 28 at The Know Theatre, with pay-what-you-can tickets for Wednesday performances! Cincinnati's theatre playground's new era is only just beginning.