THE REPRESENTATIVE. To 12 August.
London
THE REPRESENTATIVE
by Rolf Hochhuth translated by Robert David MacDonald
Finborough Theatre To 12 August 2006
Tue-Say 7.30pm Sun 3.30pm
Runs 3hr 30min Two intervals
TICKETS: 00870 4000 838 (24hr)
www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 23 July
Political thriller and urgent moral debate forcefully presented.
This is a magnificent, mammoth, must-see drama for anyone interested in history or serious 20th-century playwriting. It’s less about ideas than strategies for action, which zoom around, leaving audiences asking how they would have acted in such a position.
Rolf Hochhuth’s drama achieved notoriety in 1963 for criticising the wartime papacy’s refusal to speak out against Hitler. In these franker days, it’s revealed as an intricate argument between realpolitik, experience and ideals. This thrillingly combines with sheer narrative pace in later scenes, while Kate Wasserberg’s clear, forceful production is acted with a freshness and understanding that makes a few technical shortcomings seem unimportant.
Despite general protests and help to several thousand individual Jews, the Vatican refused to break its treaty with the Nazis or rouse Catholic priests to protect Jews. At the time the Pope’s was seen as the only voice powerful enough to halt Hitler’s extermination plans, while apart from the web of political considerations affecting the Vatican itself, Hitler was seen as Europe’s one guard against Communism. Vatican discussions spiral upwards till the Pope appears in Simon Molloy’s sensitive performance, all reason amid safety, wanting Hitler defeated by the West, not by Stalin.
The alternative of Oliver Pengelly’s ardent young Jesuit, isn’t encouraging. Allying himself with deported Jews, his arrival at Auschwitz causes more deaths. Yet better this, perhaps, than Jack Klaff’s cigar-smoking Cardinal, his joviality turning to horror when Vatican etiquette’s breached (Klaff’s no studio-scale performer, but remains persuasive)
More thoughtful is Steve Sarossy’s brave SS-engineer, shocked at seeing death-camps, arguing with the Catholic hierarchy for action; Sarossy’s concerned insistence captures the moral urgency perfectly. And Wasserberg shows in a little moment, a Vatican scribe bowing as he reads out the Pope’s name, how far this rarefied world is from the last act’s Auschwitz, where Stephanie Thomas’s prisoner shows utter subjugation to the confident authority of David Kershaw’s sneering Nazi doctor.
Wasserberg’s device of having furniture shifted between scenes by a family who’ll be identified as deported Italian Jews adds to this edgy mix of physically comfortable debate and degrading, deadly reality. A terrific piece of theatre.
Apostolic Nuncio in Berlin/Count Fontana’s Servant: Peter Stenson
Father Riccardo Fontana SJ: Oliver Pengelly
Priest in Nujncio’s Residence/Swiss Guard in Papal Palace/Salzer/Jewish Kapo: Michael Lovatt
Kurt Gerstein: Steve Sarossy
Jacobson/Italian Militiaman/Writer in the Vatican: Matthew Bates
Doctor/Italian Militiaman/monk: David Kershaw
Photographer/Witzel: Leander Deeny
Count Fontana/Luccani: Edmund Dehn
Cardinal/Manufacturer: Jack Klaff
Dr Lothar Luccani/Dr Fritsche: William McGeugh
Julia Luccani: Denise McCormick
Girl: Kelly Alexander, Matilda Castrey, Harriet Higgs
Boy: Roy Arvatz, Luke Beach
Simonetta/Carlotta: Stephanie Thomas
Abbot: Robert Gillespie
Pope Pius XII: Simon Molloy
Director: Kate Wasserberg
Designer: Alex Marker
Lighting: Tom White
Sound: Crispin Anderson
2006-07-24 17:02:41