A review of A Report on the Banality of Love, the latest reenactment of the ballad of Hannah and Martin.

McPhillamy seems every inch the preoccupied, absent-minded professor when McKenna's timid Hannah first enters his office. Soon, though, he's using his plummy voice as an instrument of seduction, the married man with power convincing his besotted student to have an affair on his terms.

Through five encounters played out in Brechtian fashion against shifting black-and-white cityscape sketches, the two discuss their careers, relationships (including Arendt's two marriages), and what the Nazi rise to power means for Germany.

Wouldn't Brechtian imply it's an operetta or musical? Show me the way to the next whisky bar please don't ask why.  ¶ 6:43 AM