Sholom Aleichem In The Old Country - Review

Lion and Unicorn Theatre, London


****


Adapted by Saul Reichlin

Saul Reichlin

There’s a lot to be said for one man who can stand on an unadorned stage and with a few well chosen words, a wrinkled brow and a beady eye, transport an audience away to another time and a place; creating an illusion, for over an hour,  of the Pale of Settlement where the Jews of Eastern Europe once lived.

Unquestionably, Sholom Aleichem was the greatest Yiddish storyteller of the 19th century - some say the Jewish equivalent of Dickens - but here the credit goes to Saul Reichlin for his captivating performance, not only as Aleichem, but also as the twenty characters we meet on his journey.

We are first introduced to Sholom Aleichem as he travels by train to the fictional old town of Kasrilevke where he is taking a short holiday.  Instantly comical, the play opens with writer Aleichem trying to explain to his fellow train passengers how one can make a living from writing. Ach! He must own a bookshop they deduce.

Almost like a guidebook, Reichlin vividly describes the hustle and bustle of the town’s train station. A mirage of images becomes spun into a hilarious adventure that only ends with Aleichem in a flea-ridden hotel, having lunch in a restaurant with no food.

Reichlin's portrayal of the townsfolk captures their self-deprecating humanity; people who amidst all of life's pitfalls and petty resentments, hide loving hearts behind their snarky words and wry smiles. We meet the wise Rabbi who strokes his beard and sucks the end of it, the paupers who grab a free ride on the tram (they have nothing else to do). There is Tevye the milkman (yes, that Teyve) all kvetching and complaining.  Religion is everything to the eponymous dairyman; he looks to the heavens, shaking his fist to God; why does he have so much bad luck and stress in his life?  But he respects God above all else, so there’s always a smile and a joke. This character’s life, like nearly all those we meet in Kasrilevke, may well be hard and heart-breaking but it is heart-warming at the same time.

Sholom Aleichem In The Old Country is at once charming, funny, sad and yet it is ultimately tragic. Not because of any serious disaster that befalls the characters, but rather because it offers up a taste of an innocent time, a small window into the soul of the Jewish people of The Pale, who don’t know it, but who are about to lose everything. Reichlin's and Sholom Aleichem’s characters may be ultimately doomed but their humanity and comedy leaves one feeling incredibly uplifted.

Runs until 25th November

Reviewed by Jodie Sinyor

Sus

Lion & Unicorn Theatre, London

****

Written by Barrie Keefe

Directed by Paul Tomlinson

Alexander Neal

Barrie Keefe’s Sus is revived in an intimate traverse setting at Kentish Town’s Lion & Unicorn theatre. Inspired by and drawn from the police’s  “stopping on SUSpicion” powers of the 1970’s that were widely misused against the black community, the producers are keen to suggest that not a lot has changed in the last 35 years.

Set on the eve of Margaret Thatcher’s first election victory, the one act play’s action never leaves a police interview room. Interestingly, the crime for which Delroy, a black man who has been brought in from the pub for questioning, is not a SUS matter, but rather the recent bloody death of his pregnant wife,  where CID officers Karn and Wilby have not unreasonable initial grounds to suspect him of her murder. It is the extent however to which these institutionally racist coppers pursue their line of inquiry, throwing their rule book out of the window and treating their suspect appallingly, that makes for such gripping theatre that is at times unbearable to watch.

Keefe’s writing has always been gritty, peppered with just enough coarse language and above all sprinkled with frequent exchanges of cockney gallows-humour that only an accomplished London writer can master. That a highly charged moment of confrontation can be reduced, in a moment, to a comparison of the respective sexual charms of TV newsreaders  Anna Ford and  Angela Rippon (this is 1979 remember) demonstrates Keefe’s ability to make one chuckle uncomfortably whilst at the same time cranking up the dramatic tension.

Wole Sawyerr is Delroy who, as the the mood of the piece darkens, digs deep to find his his grief and his rage . When he is beaten up by Wilby, one feels for the agony of the blows and his pleading tears crave our sympathy. Of the two cops, Nason Crone’s Wilby is perhaps the most stereotyped. His is the lesser educated of the two policemen, most capable of expressing his contempt for Delroy with his fists. Wilby is a complex character with whom Crone has yet to engage at an appropriate level of depth.

It is Alexander Neal’s Karn that is the engine at the core of this production in a performance that again demonstrates the excellence to be found on London’s fringe. Neal relishes every word of Keefe’s carefully crafted irony and chain smoking, moustachioed and with hair greased back, he embodies a truly ugly side of the police that Life on Mars’ Gene Hunt set about portraying in an altogether lighter vein.

Seen today, Sus is a fascinating piece of historical comment, that at the very least was prescient in describing the culture that was to surround the police response to the tragic murder of Stephen Lawrence.  Two years after the play premiered at Theatre Royal Stratford East (where Paul Barber defined Delroy) Brixton and Toxteth erupted into riot, largely prompted by an abuse of the Sus laws. The programme states that this production is a response to the 2011 riots but that association seems a little opportunistic. The social and violent unrest of those more recent summer troubles was certainly a complex cocktail, probably fuelled by a lot more than just a kicking out at a racist police force.

As an observation, the packed audience on press night (some of whom were atrociously behaved and all credit to the actors for playing on) was entirely white, not an accurate reflection of this city’s ethnic make-up and Sus is nothing if not a play that deserves to be seen by all. A strong company, Neal’s chilling performance and Keefe’s still shockingly electric writing make for a troubling 90 minutes. Catch it if you can.

Confessions of a Butterfly - Review

The Lion & Unicorn Theatre, London

***

Written by Jonathan Salt

Directed by Sam Conway



Programme cover from
Confessions of a Butterfly

In a modest flurry of London plays about Dr Janusz Korczak, Confessions of a Butterfly arrives as a one act, one man tribute to this Polish-Jewish hero of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Korczak was a renowned paediatric doctor, ahead of his time, who devoted his career to studying and caring for children and to documenting The Rights of The Child, a doctrine later to be enshrined by the United Nations. In Warsaw between the wars, he established a Jewish orphanage where much of his research and observations were undertaken. When the Nazis occupied Poland and amongst their plans for the Final Solution to exterminate the Jews, they established the ghetto in Warsaw into which the orphanage was transferred. Throughout this period of deprivation, degradation and horrific suffering, Korczak heroically remained with his charges until he and they were transported to the Treblinka concentration camp and murdered.

The play is set in Korczak’s bedroom/study in the orphanage, the night before transportation. Amidst modest sips of vodka and aware of the fate that awaits him and the children in the morning, he describes his work and philosophy through flashback and direct explanation to the audience. Jonathan Salt, who plays Korczak, has researched his subject thoroughly. Salt is very learned and committed to teaching others of man’s inhumanity against man.

Against such a devoted background of study, scriptwriting and performance it seems churlish to criticise, however the play fails to reach the heights, nor plough the harrowing depths, to which its creators aspire. Like his subject, Salt’s performance is stoic, but stoicism by its nature barely scratches the surface of a person’s emotional core. We do see the Doctor moved when he has to care for a baby dying of typhus, but through much of the play, the man is more narrator than impassioned and above all troubled, protector. We rarely get a chance to see the brave face that of course he would have put on for the children, drop and we need to. For this work to have  dramatic impact, Salt needs to be less understated in portraying the Doctor and instead explore the emotional anguish that his hero would be suffering, so cognisant of the destruction of his community and his children. Towards the end of the play Korczak suffers a nightmare as he fitfully sleeps during that awful final slumber. This may be Salt’s nod towards Korczak’s inner turmoil, but it is a confused moment in the play, and as a recognition of the man’s emotional upheaval, it is too late on in this well intentioned, but nonetheless flawed, tribute.

Runs until 29 September 2012