Ulrike Meinhof Sings is an impressive poetic monologue, infused with evocative and visceral language, personification and imagery. One is confronted with a story of bank robberies, shootouts, bombings, bloodshed, death, politics and a female German terrorist’s aspirations to disrupt the class systems and create an impetus for revolt. She is a member of The Red Army Faction and describes herself as a guerrilla.

Nadia Townsend’s near-perfect performance was full of vibrato, animation and conviction. The actor was attired in a papery, mock-wedding dress punctured with holes and decorated with black splotches, of what can be assumed to represent bloodstains. Four long white streams (two attached to the floor, another two to the ceiling) and a rectangle placed in the centre of the black curtains seemed to serve little purpose, nonetheless, the lack of props allowed the viewer to remain focused on the prophetic and verse-like language of Christopher Barnett’s script.
Speakers were used to provide an unsettling music score, playing from a notebook and music mixer. The accompaniment could have been a little more dramatic in certain sections to emphasise the lone character’s emotions and the events she recounted.
This disturbing work’s frightening and foreboding lyric reverberates in one’s mind. The audience is addressed as the general German public of what could be interpreted as either Western Germany or the modern, unified latter. Judging by the time it was composed (during the 1980s) it is the former.
The themes of Ulrike Meinhof Sings are timeless and not only relevant now, but extremely pertinent. As the West continues to move into the twenty-first century, society is battered by projections of terrorism, warfare, environmental and economic crises; and the political and economical ideologies of liberal democracy and capitalism are called into question. Viewers should enjoy the challenge this play offers. It is a reminder that we inhabit a world controlled by paranoia and fear. It is a haunting and powerful exploration of morality, liberty and the battle for a utopian society. One is urged to ask: what is the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter?