Hitler's favorite director walks into Johnny Carson's studio. What could go wrong?
The play is an atypical story about Leni Riefenstahl, Adolf Hitler's court director, one of the best filmmakers in the world, who rose to fame thanks to films commissioned by the Third Reich. The character of Leni was portrayed by Zdena Studénková in the drama of the Slovak National Theatre. The original Slovak play Leni by Valerie Schulczová and Roman Olekšák is about a fictional meeting of two real people. The legendary presenter Johnny Carson, whose "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" was one of the most watched talk shows in America for thirty years, and the controversial Leni Riefenstahl, Adolf Hitler's "court director". It's 1974, Johnny is at the height of his career, and Leni is in America presenting her first completed project since the defeat of Germany - a book of photographs from Africa - Last of Nubu. But Johnny knows what his audience is more interested in than art.
Acting
Studénková's Riefenstahl: charm, denial, and poison.
Writing
The Carson framing device is diabolically clever.
Direction
Tight two-hander that weaponizes live performance.
Director
Valéria Schulczová
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Riefenstahl actually did appear on American talk shows in the 1970s promoting her photography books, though never Carson specifically.
The play premiered as Europe grappled with 'cleaning up' compromised artists — Wagner, Heidegger, now streaming-era reckoning.
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