Collaboration and Taking Sides

<p><b>Collaboration</b> and <b>Taking Sides</b> are companion pieces by Ronald Harwood. <b>Taking Sides</b> premiered at the Minerva Theatre, Chichester in 1995; <b>Collaboration</b> premiered at the same theatre in July 2008, when the two plays were staged in repertory. <br><br><b>Collaboration </b><br>In 1931, composer Richard Strauss and writer Stephan Zweig embark on an invigorating artistic partnership. But Zweig is a Jew and the Nazis are on the march. Is it possible to keep artistic aspiration and political action separate? How fine is the line between collaboration and betrayal? <br><br><b>Taking Sides</b> <br>Prized by Hitler as the cultural jewel in the crown of the Third Reich, conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler became the perfect post-war target for interrogation as a Nazi sympathiser. Major Steve Arnold, who has witnessed the horrors of Belsen, is about to cross-examine him.<br><br>''What does the artist do in a brutal, totalitarian society? Can art ever claim to be above politics? Harwood''s fierce moral debate is set in the American zone of occupied Berlin in 1946. The play acts as a powerful metaphor for the present and all those post-authoritarian societies busy ransacking their pasts.'' <i>Guardian</i><br><br>''A brave, wise and deeply moving play about the fatal confrontation between culture and power, between art and politics, between irresponsible freedom and responsible compromise. A gripping moral challenge in a cocksure and self-seeking age.'' <i>Sunday Times</i></p>