Post by pledge on Mar 14, 2019 9:59:58 GMT
I was almost put off seeing this by a (completely clueless and misleading) two star review on line, but in the event encountered one of the most powerful pieces of writing I've seen in a long while, and one that I've been unable to stop thinking about since. Set in a Dutch transit camp (emphatically NOT a concentration camp!) it features a group of protected Jewish cabaret performers trying to survive until the imminent arrival of the Allies, by playing to the knife-edge sympathies of the Commandant. (Himself walking a tightrope between personal survival and repressed human need.) As they are increasingly forced to make unpalatable decisions and their internal loyalties are challenged, it proceeds through a series of increasingly gripping (yet never implausible or melodramatic) encounters of a skin-tightening tension, charged with irony but also sheer truthfulness in line after line. Now it's true that it's not hard to imagine a far more sophisticated production (if your characters are supposedly star-quality headline performers you're asking a hell of a lot of your cast!) - but as it stands it's good enough to convey much of the power of the writing, the economy of the plotting, and the sheer depth of characterisation. If this were being seen in a major theatre with a better-known cast it would easily invite comparison with a play like "Good", but tucked away in the White Bear it risks being overlooked and lost. If you can see past the almost inevitable shortcomings of an underfunded and rather scrappy Fringe production you'll find in its unvarnished honesty a 5 star piece of writing. Strongly recommended.