I WILL BEAR WITNESS. New End Theatre to 10 February.

London

I WILL BEAR WITNESS
by Victor Klemperer, translated by Martin Chalmers, adapted by Karen Malpede and George Bartenieff

New End Theatre To 10 February 2002
Runs 2hr 30min One interval

TICKETS 020 7794 0022
Review Timothy Ramsden 22 January

One man against the Nazis: the daily struggle for survival in an impossible world brought to life in a fine performance.In two door-stopping volumes, Victor Klemperer's diaries of life as a Jew in Nazi Dresden between 1942-1945 must make absorbing reading. Adapting them to an evening-length script poses major problems.

Malpede and Bartenieff catch the varying moods, balancing incident and reflection. As the Nazi terror clutches tighter, and allied fire-bombers drone overhead, thoughts are increasingly balanced by action.

Klemperer considered himself German more than Jewish, adopted Protestantism and was married from 1906 till his death (in 1960) to the non-Jewish Eva - a loving relationship which saved his life. For him, it was the Nazis who were not true Germans. Yet, his first response to them being the scholar's, he discovered all Hitler's ideas current in 1870s Germany.

It's amazing a man in his sixties, forced into a full shift of outdoor manual labour, kept writing voluminously. He questions himself: is this necessary testimony or vanity? His diaries display the complexity of wartime life; there's talk of revolution and many whispered words of comfort from non-Jews. They come out of the blue, in the dark – a single sentence from a cyclist who then wheels away.

Yet, despite constant anxiety - someone's late return induces deep fear - humanity is not frozen. Klemperer persuades a Jewish neighbour not to poison herself as the Gestapo loom. Or he asserts himself, refusing to sell his house.

The scissors and paste have been wielded with surprising success, though there are several sudden transitions. I wish a clearer decision had been made on performance style. At times Bartenieff seems to be enacting Klemperer's struggle to express himself in words; elsewhere he seems to be recalling events directly for an audience, at other times again re-enacting the direct experiences.

In the last two modes, with higher energy levels, he best recreates both man and era – a world where 'impossible' and 'unimaginable' have lost their meaning.. Set in a spare room backed by a huge wall flaring with suggestions of holocaust and gotterdammerung alike, there is only a tiny door for escape, the home to which Klemperer returns when the horror is finally over.

Victor Klemperer: George Bartenieff

Director: Karen Malpede
Original Design: Neil Patel
Scenic Artist: Nicolai Hart Hansen
Lighting: Ben M. Rogers
Costume: Angela Wendt

2002-01-23 10:25:30