A Holocaust drama that unearths a unique story but that tries too desperately for a cinematic edge.
Holocaust plays are particularly difficult to make engaging for a contemporary audience. Finding a live balance between not taking the story too seriously while also paying it the respectful weight a story about genocide demands requires meticulous attention and artistry.
Since learning about my own family’s Jewish roots, I’ve developed an unexpected fondness for Holocaust theatre, largely because I think theatre is the best form in which to explore the more horrible moments of human history. It puts faces and souls, hands and feet, to otherwise far-away stories of smoke and ash – all without shocking its audience beyond reflection.
It is important, therefore, that theatre that dares to dig into these subjects does not content itself simply with a cinematic atmosphere of angst or the safe, reverent gravity with which one reads about genocide in the newspaper or a history textbook. Rather, it is imperative that theatre that tackles the Holocaust anchors itself with authentic characters – characters who feel so real that we forget we are watching something that happened eighty years ago.
Like playwright Jean-Phillipe Daguerre’s grandparents’ story, a young Polish family hid my own grandmother during the war. Only recently did I learn that this family even existed, let alone that my grandmother was Jewish.
When I arrived at the Park Theatre, I couldn’t wait to see a version of my grandmother’s story translated for the stage. I was prepared to let the production unfold something within me, anything that might make me feel close to her once again. Unfortunately, FAREWELL MISTER HAFFMANN fell prey to the aforementioned trap: it did most of the feeling for me.
The story itself is a remarkable one. As the Nazis descend on Paris, husband and wife Pierre (Michael Fox) and Isabelle Vigneau (Jennifer Kirby) agree to take ownership of a Jewish jeweler’s shop – that of Joseph Haffmann (Alex Waldmann) – in exchange for hiding him in the cellar. Meanwhile, the couple have been trying for a child, but, upon learning that Pierre is infertile, wonder if Mr. Haffmann could be doing a bit more than simply keeping the sales records straight while he shelters downstairs. With a story this ripe, it’s no surprise that the original French version has won four Moliere Awards and received international acclaim.
The production stumbles, however, in its lack of cohesive theatrical storytelling, leaning on vague atmospheric devices – notably an overwrought sound design – and largely overlooking the rich poetic opportunities in the text.
Daguerre was originally inspired to write this play when he heard original French radio recordings from the 1940s decrying the “invasion” of Jewish cultural and political ambitions in France. The play, however, was translated to English, an itchy distraction amidst the many references to the characters’ Parisian identities and French-speaking abilities. The radio excerpts – the only historically authentic artifacts of this production – were also tragically translated to English. As subtitle projection was already a distinctive design element in the production, I still wonder: why did anything need to be translated at all?
The sound design was equally distracting, pleading with the audience to feel a certain way (usually fearful) and forcibly injecting tension where it failed to occur naturally onstage.
Many of what could have been the most impactful moments were undercut as a result, namely the sequences when Pierre “practices” his tap dance while his wife and Mr. Haffmann are downstairs in the cellar. Tap does not simply respond to music – it also creates it. So when Pierre taps furiously to a swelling score of overlaid orchestral strings, the message he could have been communicating through the tap is overpowered. The production adds unnecessary noise to the simple, yet powerful, storytelling nuggets that already exist in the text.
Additionally, the staging felt rushed and cluttered. Furniture and props constantly got in the actors’ way. The bed – a brief (but never literal) symbol of Isabelle’s and Mr. Haffmann’s cellar activities – remained tucked against the upstage wall for most of the play. And for all the movable furniture, the middle of the stage was never given a chance to breathe.
Objects similarly held weakly believable significance to the characters, especially amidst the constant futz of moving furniture and the intricate setting and clearing of the dining table. Mr. Haffmann’s two candlesticks, for example, never enjoyed their full religious importance as symbols of his Jewish faith. Instead of embodying their significance to, for example, the Sabbath, and the memory of his distant family, Haffmann bends over them vaguely and occasionally in the cellar until his final exit when he places one of them center stage and lights it, only to have it blown out, seconds later, by Isabelle. It made for a dramatic black out but lacked a clear message on the part of any of the characters. Precious opportunities to bestow reverent attention to these key storytelling objects were sadly lost to spectacle.
One stand-out aspect of the play did shine, however: the moments of abstract movement. In one particular moment, Mr Haffmann sits alone in the cellar. Above him, the thin street-level window, in front of which he has been given strict instructions not to walk, leaks a shaft of sunlight into the middle of the room. As if caught by a memory, he floats softly to his feet and into the pool of light. With outstretched arms and eyes closed, he begins to dance.
Witnessing this moment, I felt the memory of my grandmother’s experience gently ripple. I was watching the double-sided coin of fear and courage twirling beautifully, sadly onstage. For a play about fear and the courage to overcome it, FAREWELL MISTER HAFFMAN did this story justice by its brilliant use of movement in these moments. The play did not tell me how to feel when Mr. Haffmann stepped into the sun. Rather, it did what theatre knows how to do best: it gave me – an audience member with no direct relationship to this character or his experience – a moment in which to live alongside him. For this moment alone, I am grateful that FAREWELL MISTER HAFFMANN has found a London home for its story and hope that it finds the courage, as Mr. Haffmann does, to move farther into the light.