By Ernest Kearney — The Drama Theatre Fantazja from Sydney, Australia arrived at the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2019 with an international cast and a beautifully produced staging of The Trial of Dali by playwright Andy Kolo.
The play presents the difficulties Dali (James Domeyko) and his wife Gala (Jolanta Szewczyk) faced when they returned from their wartime exile in New York to Franco’s fascist Spain in 1948.
Now part of my problem here was I was unaware of any difficulties he faced. I knew that Dalí had praised Franco for atrocities he had committed during the Spanish Civil War and afterwards to quote Dali, “clearing Spain of destructive forces.” I also knew that Dali had painted a portrait of the dictator’s grandchild (or niece I can’t recall), and that George Orwell, a dedicated anti-fascist had said,
“One ought to be able to hold in one’s head simultaneously the two facts that Dalí is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being.”
My research, contrary to the play, turned up no evidence of Dali facing any obstacles on his return to Franco’s Spain.
But this is not really a problem.
Macbeth was a much beloved ruler whose reign of twenty years was peaceful and prosperous, and Becket, as Jean Anouilh learned after he wrote the play, was a Norman like Henry II and not a Saxon.
Good theatre does not depend on granite fidelity to the “truth.”
It does depend on a crafted script, skillful direction and solid acting none of which, sadly The Trial of Dali possesses.
A well-executed stage design by Vitek Skonieczny and Nicolas Suricic and a stirring violin intro by young Sebastian Banasiak-Adaji lead only to disappointment; a script that is neither absurdist nor engaging, where characters seem to be introduced for sheer name power (Marilyn Monroe, Andy Warhol, Picasso), direction that is unfocused and meandering, with acting that is…well more like people standing on a stage than actual acting.
It is not the mélange of international accents presented here but the apparent lack of craft. Two of the performers were inaudible to me and my lovely wife Marlene, and we were sitting in the second row.
The only survivors were Domeyko who captured the self-absorption of the artist perfectly and Sam Davey who menaced the artist with believable threat. 
Domeyko, Davey and young Sebastian salvaged The Trial of Dali for –
A BRONZE MEDAL
For Updated Show Information: http://hff19.org/6195
Learn more about The Polish Drama Theatre “Fantazja” at www.teatrfantazja.org/
For Events, Plays and Other Fun Fringe News and Info: https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/
