The Banality of Evil – Hannah Arendt, France 1940, Written and directed by Julia Pascal, The Arcola Theatre, Studio 2, London | until 07 November 2026. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by William Russell

Photo credit: Alex Brenner

The Banality of Evil – Hannah Arendt, France 1940

Written and directed by Julia Pascal

The Arcola Theatre, Studio 2, 24 Ashwin Street, London E8 | until 07 November 2026.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review by William Russell

“Challenging, moving and splendidly performed.”

In 1940 the German Jewish writer Hannah Arendt, who was then living in France, became an undesirable to the Vichy regime and, along with other women including the artist Charlotte Salomon and the teenage Communist Eva Daube, was sent to a concentration camp called Gurs near the Spanish border. It was a dreadful place and after the fall of Vichy the Germans took it over in 1942 and the occupants were sent to the death camps. By that time, Arendt, however, was long gone. After a couple of months of hell she and the other two escaped to Spain and in due course reached the United States. Julia Pascal's cousin David Daube told her that her aunt and grandmother had been among the German Jews living in France sent to Gurs and that prompted her to write this play. Gurs consisted of some 382 windowless wooden huts built on 13 islands surrounded by marshland and conditions were appalling. The cast of six with minimal props and a virtually empty stage conjure up what happened and it makes a hard to watch moving ninety minutes in a couple of dozen scenes as the women cope with the conditions, form friendships, collaborate and fight to retain their sanity. It is a potent mixture of styles – song, dance, mime, with a particularly heartbreaking moment as one woman drowns in the mud by slowly pulling up a dark brown sheet over herself. Mai Weisz is outstanding as Arendt, a woman who refused to submit, as indeed she did all her life, to things that had gone wrong, but it is very much an ensemble piece with the players complementing one another. It also makes uncomfortable watching in that concentration camps were invented by us, and we still have camps holding people we do not actually want to come here to live even if they are not places like Gurs. Chances are, unless they are Jewish, most of those in the audiences for the play will not have heard of the camp. It is a challenging piece and Pascal has directed her play well, in itself is an achievement as the writer is not always the best judge of what should be done with their work.

Cast

Ariella Barnett – Eva

Pat Dynowska – Trude

Anna Eckhard – Charlotte

Anja Fahlenkamp – Ensemble

Helen Goldwyn – Agathe

Mai Weisz – Hannah

Creatives

Director – Julia Pascal

Set Designer – Carmen Neat

Lighting Designer – Tony Simpson

Costume Designer – Lelsey Lightfoot

Musical Composition & Arrangement – Anja Fahlenkamp