“The Performance” (2023) is an adaptation of an Arthur Miller short story published in The New Yorker issue April 22/29, 2002 and would later appear in his collection, “Presence: Stories” (2007). It starts in November 1936 in in New York and focuses on formerly successful tap dancer Harold May (Jeremy Piven), birth name Marcovitz, who decides to embark on an international tour to see if lightning can strike twice. When Damian (get it, like the cinematic anti-Christ) Fugler (great Scottish character actor Robert Carlyle) offers a lucrative one-night performance in Berlin to Harold May and His Dancing Dreams, Harold accepts even though he is Jewish, and the Nazis are in power. May has spent his life passing and feels that he is owed the praise and big payday in exchange for doing what he loves, but is he making a deal with the devil?
The timing of the theatrical release is pitch perfect as another inauguration day came around earlier this week, and the usual judgment is being cast over those who choose to perform for Presidon’t. All jobs come with a certain amount of compromise to make a living, but at what point do people become complicit? The line is different for everyone, and Harold is dancing as fast as he can to not notice the exponentially increasing literal and metaphorical red flags. Fugler, who does not know about Harold’s secret, reassures them, “politics is for the sheep and wolves, but beauty unites, does it not?” Sadly, no because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the beholder could be a Nazi who stops seeing beauty once the subject has the wrong identity. The fascist Orwellian twist on the phrase identity politics as a dismissal of valid critiques of dominant caste supremacist culture does not get lost in this movie because Harold does everything that he can to pretend religion, national origin, sexual orientation, and politics are not an issue.
Piven’s big sister, director and cowriter Shira Piven, is behind the camera and clearly loves her little brother. If it was not for the fact that I have a particular taste for how dancing should be filmed, I would not notice that the shots of the feet or lower half is often separate from the torso and had me wondering if Piven was really hoofing it. Keep the entire body in the frame. The Piven siblings convey the conflicting emotion of internal self-flagellation of Harold selling his soul and the jubilation over finally making it. Jeremy, who has always had a captivating on-screen presence, is likely at his best because “The Performance” is a second chance for him too. Piven has faced a cluster of sexual harassment allegations, and while he never stopped being gainfully employed, he has not returned to “Entourage” levels of fame, which may explain his willingness to venture into new territory.
The rest of the troupe mostly backs Harold’s decisions because they need the money. Only ladies’ man, Benny (Adam Garcia), expresses misgivings. Paul (Isaac Gryn), a dancer plagued with nerves, is not the brightest bulb in the bunch so when he has dalliances with the same sex, he does not realize that he is putting them in jeopardy. Paul barely gets any screentime so there are no consequences to the main character’s rising star, but the Nazis make it clear that they do not want homosexuals or Jewish people in their midst. Former love interest and fellow dancer, Carol (Maimie McCoy, a Brit who sounds just like Portia de Rossi), thinks that being an American will keep them safe. There is never an explanation why the group has three men and one woman. “The Performance” seems to want to convey how the stress gradually disintegrates the groups’ bonds, but other than Bennie, they are not individuated enough for that transformation to be clear to moviegoers. One line does not land as hard as it should, “I’ve never been to Connecticut.” Dude, with all due respect to Connecticut, which has many lovely qualities, it is a drive through state for most, and not a big enough incentive to side with the Nazis.
Cowriters Piven and Joshua Salzberg depart from the story, and it loses some momentum because things happen around them. Piven’s handheld camera choice works on an emotional level, but when the proverbial crap starts hitting the fan, it is hard to discern whether a person on the sidewalk being beaten up is someone that they know or not. Carlyle does a more effective job of reflecting how the heat is turning up until the pot is boiling. Fugler sets himself apart from the Nazis by dismissing labels and not dressing in uniform to lull them into comfort, but he also hides pivotal information until it is too late to back out of the deal then he changes into a uniform. He has a collection of birds, but one says racial slurs in German. Carlyle only lets his accent slip in one obvious moment. He openly compares the Americans to animals at an elegant, extravagant lunch to rival the awkward psychological one in “The Brutalist” (2024) though the prior pales in comparison and has lesser production qualities and overall average acting quality. Because the Americans are already uncomfortable, it is unclear whether they register the insult.
There is one cool scene where the Nazis clearly love one routine because it resembles a military unit formation. It never occurs to the troupe that if the Nazis like their routine, maybe it is not good? “The Performance” adores the group and thinks they are talented, but the pivotal performance looks amateurish as they discuss choreography on stage and run backstage mid routine out of fear. While it is credible that even the most consummate professional performer may fall to pieces under those circumstances, it seemed convenient that the Nazis would be so delighted that they would not notice all the seams showing.
Miller’s story and the movie omit an important fact about tap dancing, which is not necessary for the story, but was a missed opportunity to make a richer, textured story that would have heightened the tension. Tap dancing is an American indigenous dance that enslaved Black people created so Nazis would hate it as much as jazz. It also had roots in Irish step dancing. Rock and roll, another cultural phenomenon, only became mainstream in the US when it got whitewashed with covers from such entertainers as Elvis. While there are famous Jewish tap dancers, the idea of a passing Aryan looking Jewish tap dancer is a twofold story: a story of appropriation for not acknowledging the dance style’s roots and of whitewashing if the right person is performing. Unfortunately, Miller and the filmmakers may have missed that concept though the film opens in a mixed race audience in New York, which is ahistorical since segregation existed even in Harlem’s The Cotton Club. The film closes on Harold enjoying a Black young man (Jared Grimes, who was also the choreographer) tap dancing and busking in the street as if his approval is passing the baton.
Would the Nazis hurt an American if they discovered that the person lied about being Jewish? In 1937, round ups were occurring and concentration camps opening, but Kristallnacht did not occur until November 1938. In 1937, the Roma, Jehovah Witnesses and people deemed “criminals” were explicit Nazi targets. So maybe….because the antisemitic sentiment prevailed prior to the official documentation of anti-semitic violence. Pogroms had existed in Europe since the nineteenth century, but Germany was supposed to be safe. Violence against Jewish people became officially sanctioned in 1941. Nazis sent at least 350 Jewish American soldiers to the Berga slave labor camp. Eighty-six died. By the end of the war, Nazis were actively trying to segregate American POWs to send American Jewish soldiers to concentration camps, but it was not systemic. Still the psychological terror for Jewish Americans would be more than for their more Aryan perceived counterparts, especially if the European side of their families disappeared.
“The Performance” is fictional and takes a long time to make the point that duh, don’t become complicit with racist people, but it is apparently a point that needs to be made. The bar is in hell. It probably needed to be a half hour shorter, could have used a tripod more and needed to develop the story around more than Harold’s psychological struggle. It is a well-intentioned film that does what it needs to do, but there is room for improvement.
