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Steven Elliott Jackson has built a brand around the evocation of historical figures, placing them in tight, expository little dramas to ponder their existence within the social fabric of their time and illustrate how that might be of interest to us now. I have to confess, though his scenarios are elegant and informative enough, I often find them a little too pat and mannered. A Question of Character, the inaugural production of Tanisha Taitt’s new company, Stakes and Embers, and presented in partnership with Minmar Gaslight Productions, fits snugly into this brand.
The historical figure in question here is Leni Riefenstahl (Paula Wing). This is the late 1970s and she’s well into her 70s. Jackson and Wing present her as a pleasant, elderly sophisticate—gracious and accommodating… up to a point. She will not entertain even the slightest suggestion that she is at all accountable for—nor even aware of at the time—the horrors of the Third Reich. Having been legally cleared of any complicity, a fact she keeps falling back on dismissively, she wants to be appreciated for her artistry.
It seems at first that is what Paulina (Taitt) is there to investigate and document. A film journalist, Paulina is a middle-aged Black woman, fighting the good fight against racism and misogyny in her own professional sphere. At first, it seems like Paulina is just probing an idol she admires for some juicy admissions, but it eventually becomes clear her motives are far more specific and personal.
There is some intrigue as Paulina attempts to slyly signal some outside operator through the window with her compact mirror. Riefenstahl picks up on this quickly and the stakes are raised as Paulina’s true motives are revealed. Jackson shifts rather quickly from the increasingly tense Tea and Hostility tensions of an awkward interview into an emotionally fraught thriller.
Fraught, specifically, for Paulina. Taitt is the only one of this duo who loses her composure. Wing signals to us that Riefenstahl is invested in the unfolding episode, that there is some interior struggle at play, but she’s a tougher nut to crack. The most vulnerable she ever seems is when she protectively clutches a copy of The Last of the Nuba, her published book of photographs of the indigenous peoples of southern Sudan. When accused of exploitation, smearing her association with the Nuba, her desperate grip on the book is the closest we get to some compelling insight into her.
Director Alice Fox Lundy has established an effective pace, though neither she nor the cast quite transcend the staginess of the scenario. Movement here, both emotional and physical, is stilted. It doesn’t help the conflict that Paulina is the only one who wants anything significant out of this interaction. Riefenstahl is just sort of a complacent wall Paulina keeps crashing into. Though Paulina’s plight is sufficiently compelling on its own terms, and Taitt finds some poignant notes to land on, it was hard for me to invest in their escalating confrontation.
A Question of Character
January 17 to 25, 2026
Native Earth’s Aki Studio
(585 Dundas St E)
75 minutes
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