Coverage: Archduke – Roundabout

Archduke centers on toxic masculinity, using the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand as its vehicle.  For me, this theme was not fully clear during the first act.  In Act I, it seemed that Joseph's play was centering around themes of death, mortality and the meaning of one’s life within the context of young men.  This is due to the initial scene with Gavrilo and Nedeljko.  They talk about how tuberculosis will cut their life short and what have they done with their lives.  Dragutin’s recruitment of the young disaffected men seemed to support these themes with his monologue about the infection of the Austrians into the Serbian homeland with the creation of the Austro-Hungarian empire.  However, Dragutin’s monologue in the second act about ‘witchy women’ as the reason why he killed Queen Draga veers the play into misogyny.  (In this monologue, Dragutin confesses his reason for killing the Queen was because she belittled him in front of his men.)  Here the play emphasizes misogyny as part of male toxicity.  The play then takes another shift as the assassination of the archduke is played out from a meta perspective, with the perpetrators (Gavrilo, Nedeljko, and Trifko) recounting the parts they played in the killing of the archduke.  The perpetrators speculate on how the world would be if they made a different choice when they went to Sarajevo, as in: what would have happened if we just ate a sandwich.  I commend Joseph for this perspective on the psychology of violence in young men; however, I felt the path getting there was not so clear.  

I struggled with the tone of the play.  The humor during the first act seemed to detract from Joseph’s themes and characters, Gavrilo and Ndeljko being somewhat surfacy and almost buffoonish in their initial scene.  The play does, however, eventually settle into seriousness. 

Mr. Richard’s lighting implying the movement of the train is effective.  The gigantic map of Eastern Europe that bleeds over the entire back of the set is especially effective with Dragutin’s monologue about the infection of Europe.  Here the men look very small compared to the events of an overpowering world.  #archduke #roundabout

Archduke

Roundabout

Running time: 2 hours, 15-minute intermission

10/23/25 - 12/21/25

(Off-Broadway review)