Faygele - Review

Marylebone Theatre, London

***

Written by Shimmy Braun

Directed by Hannah Chissick

Ilan Galkoff and Andrew Paul

In an immaculately performed production Faygele tells the story of Ari Freed, a gay young Jewish man brought up in a strictly orthodox household and who was to take his own life as a consequence of his parents’ failure to embrace their son’s sexuality. In an evening that is occasionally moving, Shimmy Braun’s script can be perceptive while at other times coming across as shallow and two-dimensional.

Under Hannah Chissick’s assured direction Ilan Galkoff turns in an accomplished performance as Ari, at times speaking to us after death, at other times speaking in real life flashback. There is a measured energy to Galkoff’s work (including a seamless comment to an audience member to silence their mobile phone!) that impresses.

Ari is the story's most rounded character. Elsewhere, despite Braun’s sometimes flawed script, there is fine work from Ben Caplan as Ari’s monstrous father Dr Freed and in particular from Andrew Paul as the family’s rabbi. Clara Francis plays Ari’s mother in perhaps the most well constructed of all of Ari’s supporting characters.

Faygele speaks to a painful and complex subject that cries out for deeper consideration than Braun is able to offer. Mercifully the play’s one act, 90-minute duration keeps the evening short.

Runs until May 31st

Photo credit: Jane Hobson

The End of the Night - Review

Park Theatre, London

*** 

Written by Ben Brown

Directed by Alan Strachan

Ben Caplan and Michael Lumsden

The End of the Night is a play that charts the remarkable, actual event of a meeting between Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Hitler’s Reichsfuhrer and Norbert Masur, a Swedish representative of the World Jewish Congress. The meeting, brokered by Himmler’s masseuse Felix Kersten took place in the final weeks of World War Two at Kersten’s country estate just outside Berlin and achieved an outcome of seeing the negotiated release of several thousand women from Nazi concentration camps.

Writer Ben Brown was wise in spotting the dramatic potential of this meeting. Played out in the intimate cockpit of London’s Park Theatre, this should have been an enthralling night of theatre. But the enormity of the subject matter overwhelms both Brown’s narrative and the performance of Ben Caplan as Masur. There is too much poorly crafted irony in the script, alongside moments of tedious narrative that a sharper literary mind night have honed to greater linguistic counterpoint. And Caplan, who is tasked with delivering a truly complex challenge in managing Masur’s encounter with one of the architects of the Holocaust, fails to master his character’s depths.

There is sound and measured work from Richard Clothier (Himmler) and Michael Lumsden (Kersten), making the best of the script that they are given, but even so it all drags far more than a story of such magnitude deserves. 

There is a fine and noble history lesson that is told at the Park. If only Alan Strachan’s production could match the greatness of its underlying story.

Runs until 28th May

Photo credit: Mark Douet

The Knowledge - Review

Charing Cross Theatre, London

****

Written by Jack Rosenthal

Adapted for the stage by Simon Block

Directed by Maureen Lipman

Steven Pacey and Fabian Frankel

Jack Rosenthal’s BAFTA-nominated  screenplay of The Knowledge was a gem of a 1970’s television movie. The most routine facets of life, in Rosenthal’s hands, could become perfectly portrayed vignettes, as he transformed the recognisable into the bitter-sweet hilarious.

The titular knowledge is famously what is required to become a licensed London black-cab driver, a process so demanding that 70% of hopeful candidates fail to make the grade. This is hardly surprising as those who pass will, over a period of a year or two (that is, for the fast learners) have committed to memory the nigh on 15,000 streets that sit within a 6 mile radius of Charing Cross. Of equal importance, they will also have convinced their examiner that they have the patience and strength of character to deal with the full range of humanity that could, at any point in time, end up in the back of their cab. Rosenthal’s genius lay in not only recognising that “doing” the knowledge was a massive feat of memory, but that it also impacted upon the would-be cabbies’ domestic lives.

Above all, within his cast, Rosenthal created the most brilliantly tyrannical of examiners in Mr Burgess. A finely scripted, complex character, capable of the most sadistic of pedantries yet also, ultimately, caring for the overall good of the taxi trade. Mr Burgess ranks alongside some of that decade's finest dramatic creations.  

Remember too that the original screenplay was written at a time when the internet (let alone Uber) was barely heard of. There is much talk today of the cheaper and far less regulated online service threatening the licensed cab trade. Those fears are probably valid and with this adaptation, The Knowledge does a fine job in reminding us of the asset London has in it’s black-cab drivers.

The play is directed by Maureen Lipman who not only featured in the 1979 film, but was married to Rosenthal until his untimely death in 2004 and rarely has a task been undertaken that is such a labour of love. Lipman makes a decent job of her late-husband’s material, supported by a strong cast of well fleshed out caricatures. James Alexandreou puts in a strong turn as a feckless womanizer, caring as little for wife Brenda (Celine Abrahams, in the role played on TV by Lipman) as he does for his taxi studies. Fabian Frankel is a well acted Chris – an intellectually challenged young lad who struggles with the gargantuan task of mastering London’s geography.

Famously, Rosenthal had an innate understanding of the Jewish community, many of whom work in the taxi trade. Ben Caplan’s Ted , a third generation cabby captures both the man’s passion as well as his nebbish qualities in equal measure – though it is Jenna Augen as his wife Val, who so brilliantly nails the angst-ridden Jewish mother and wife. Lipman played a memorably interfering Jewish matriarch “Beattie”, in a 1980s ad campaign for BT. With Rosenthal’s creation of Val, one can see from where she may have drawn her inspiration.

The finest contribution of the night comes from Steven Pacey’s Burgess. It was Nigel Hawthorne who played the role in 1979 (with ITV’s The Knowledge just preceding the BBC’s Yes, Minister onto the nation’s TV screens). Pacey thus has massive shoes to fill and he makes the role his own. Onstage throughout – on a raised platform representing his office, a device that proves surprisingly effective - he delivers a vocal wit and physical presence that convinces us at all times of his compassionate power over the fledgling drivers.

For the most part the evening is a warm and entertaining night out. The politics may be mild and dated, but the fondness that Rosenthal (a Mancunian by birth) felt towards his capital city is there in every line. The Knowledge is a gorgeous period piece with a lavish programme (highly recommended) that is chock full of recollections and current day comparisons.

If you love Seventies culture, you’ll love this show.

Runs until November 11th

Photo credit: Scott Rylander