The Holy Rosenbergs - Review

Menier Chocolate Factory, London

**

Written by Ryan Craig

Directed by Lindsay Posner

Tracy-Ann Oberman and Dorothea Myer-Bennett

Set in north west London’s Edgware, Ryan Craig’s The Holy Rosenbergs was a muddled collection of Anglo-Jewish stereotypes when it premiered at the National Theatre back in 2011. Fast forward 15 years, and it transpires that time has not treated Craig’s playtext kindly.

David and Lesley Rosenberg had three children. Ruth is a human-rights lawyer working for the United Nations, Jonny is struggling to find his way in life and Danny, who had emigrated to Israel, has recently been killed in action serving as a helicopter pilot with the Israel Defence Forces in Gaza. The play takes place on the eve of Danny’s memorial service at the local synagogue.

Against this backdrop of conflicting views and profound loss, Craig weaves a narrative that lurches from the sensational to the implausible in a two-act play that is at best, problematic. Ruth, and equally improbably, her boss Sir Stephen Crossley (played by Adrian Lukis) who appears half way through the second act, lays out the charges against Israel’s allegedly criminal military conduct, while offering scant criticism of Hamas’s corrupted governance of Gaza and minimal objective comment upon its terrorist activities. It has sadly taken the horrors of October 7th 2023 and that day's ensuing revelations, including the intimate connections that have been found to exist between agencies of the UN and Hamas, to realise the naïveté, or perhaps more accurately, the useful idiocy, of Craig’s argument.

Done well, Jewish self-deprecation can provide moments of masterful drama as demonstrated by the likes of 20th century greats such as Sheldon Harnick and Jack Rosenthal. Craig aspires to be an (Arthur) Miller Lite, offering us clumsily constructed nods to the American's Willy Loman and Joe Keller in the character of David Rosenberg. His writing however doesn’t come close to matching Miller's genius.

So the work may be profoundly flawed, but what of Lindsay Posner’s production values? Tracy-Ann Oberman as Lesley and Dorothea Myer-Bennett's Ruth are both magnificent. Oberman in particular, capturing the complex emotions of a mother struggling to maintain her equilibrium while simultaneously dealing with unimaginably traumatic grief. Her take on the role is credible and carefully crafted. Equally, Myer-Bennett in a part that is hard to be seen as believable, makes a first-class job of some mediocre writing.

As for the men, Adrian Lukis's human rights lawyer offers up the best work of the night. As David, Nicholas Woodeson struggles to suspend our disbelief, and though his final scenes in the play are delivered with a sincere poignancy, it is too little, too late.

Tim Shortall’s set may be authentic Edgware, but lest there be any doubt about this production’s bias, as the audience take their seats in the Menier an audio mise-en-scene plays clips of Gordon Brown’s and Barack Obama’s criticisms of Israel’s military.

Notwithstanding some outstanding work from the women, The Holy Rosenbergs does not stand up to the scrutiny of being revived and should have been allowed to rest in peace.

Runs until 2nd May

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

1984 - Review

Theatre Royal, Bath

****

Written by George Orwell

Adapted by Ryan Craig

Directed by Lindsay Posner

Keith Allen and Mark Quartley

In our world today with its visibly two-tiered criminal justice system, where citizens are imprisoned for the crime of having expressed their opinions while at the same time a notoriously shamed paedophile, convicted of viewing pornographic images of the most depraved child abuse can escape a custodial sentence, it feels like a re-visiting of George Orwell's 1984 is long overdue. 

Orwell's Oceania is a totalitarian state presided over by Big Brother. A society where the militia brutalise the citizens into surrendering their capacity to think. As the regime edits the languge of its day into the continually updated 'Newspeak', the modern-day resonances with the West are troubling. Orwell's classic has long been a harsh prediction on where our democracies are heading and in Lindsay Posner's production, staged against Justin Nardella's bleak but effective video projections, there are moments of deeply harrowing horror. 

Mark Quartley plays protagonist Winston Smith, a role that is physically demanding and consuming. On stage virtually throughout, it is his arc that we follow as his secrets are betrayed and he is violently subject to electric-shock torture, its objective to destroy any sense of right and wrong that we see him desperately try to cling on to.

Opposite Quartley is Eleanor Wyld playing his love interest Julia. The pair hold our suspense throughout and as we learn of their ultimate mutual betrayal of each other, the evening's endgame is a heartbreaker.

Astride the whole work and seated on stage throughout, in what should have been a stroke of perfect casting, is Keith Allen's O'Brien. Not at his best on press night, there is more that Allen can likely bring to the role. O'Brien is a man devoid of any shred of humanity and compassion and while that harshness was at times apparent in Allen's work, there were moments when his carapace appeared to be more of a soft underbelly.

This production can only improve on the road - an intelligent treatment of one of the 20th century's finest stories.

Runs until 28th September, then on tour to Malvern, Poole, Guildford, Cambridge, Brighton, Richmond and Liverpool

Photo credit: Simon Annand

The Arc - Review

Soho Theatre, London

**

Written by Amy Rosenthal, Alexis Zegerman and Ryan Craig

Directed by Kayla Feldman

Abigail Weinstock

It’s not often that a play writes its own review, but when Nigel Planer’s Michael, a retired  obstetrician, refers early on in The Arc to “a shimmering platter of bollocks on toast” he could have been describing The Arc itself.

A trilogy of new short plays by three different writers, The Arc strives to give an alternative Jewish perspective on Birth, Marriage and Death (also the titles of each drama). On for a short run at Soho Theatre’s Upstairs house, the venue was packed for this mid-run performance.

A well drilled and high-performing cast deliver the pieces, but aside from some neatly observed pathos in Alexis Zegerman’s Marriage that focusses on some of the finely nuanced complexities of dating, there’s more Jewish life-cycle substance to found in the Social and Personal columns of the JC.

All of the actors are great, notably Nigel Planer in Amy Rosenthal’s Birth and equally Abigail Weinstock in Marriage. But notwithstanding the performances that Kayla Feldman coaxes from her company in this mercifully short (hour-long) production, what The Arc lacks in credibility it makes up for in groaning cliche.

Bollocks indeed.

Runs until 26th August

Photo credit: Danny with a camera