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cabaret final performance @ studio 54, 2002

Photograph by Jeff Brown for The New Yorker

Raúl Esparza Takes on Bertolt Brecht’s Allegory of Hitler’s Ascent

Esparza reunites with his “Company” director, John Doyle, on “The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui,” which provides a darker outlet for Esparza’s yearning intensity.

The last time Raúl Esparza (above) teamed up with the director John Doyle was in 2006, when Esparza played the love-starved hero of Doyle’s diamond-sharp revival of “Company.” Esparza’s yearning intensity will have a darker outlet in “The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui” (starting previews on Oct. 30, at Classic Stage Company). In Bertolt Brecht’s allegory of Hitler’s ascent, written in 1941 and first performed in 1958, Esparza plays a nineteen-thirties Chicago gangster who wrests control of the cauliflower trade.