During the final days of Germany’s crumbling Third Reich, the once efficient and mechanised nation has become a volatile and dangerous place, with the lives of potentially thousands of concentration camp inmates hanging in the balance. In Ben Brown’s new play, physiotherapist Felix Kersten (Michael Lumsden) attempts to convene a secret meeting between his Nazi patient Heinrich Himmler (Richard Clothier) and a Swedish member of the World Jewish Congress, Norbert Masur (Ben Caplan).With Germany’s surrender seemingly imminent and inevitable, the objective is to persuade the architect of the Final Solution to release any remaining survivors of the concentration camps as a gesture of goodwill and a means of bargaining with the Allies. Given that such a treacherous act would be contrary to Hitler’s explicit directives, it is assumed that his lieutenant believed it would render him statesmanlike, a potential replacement for the Führer and someone with whom the Allies would then work to defeat the Bolshevik threat from the east. It is perhaps the greatest conceit which underpins the story’s revelation.
Through Alan Strachan’s steady and relaxed direction there is a palpable sense of foreboding, but tension and menace is downplayed in favour of conversational congeniality in the hope that the effect on the situation, will be to imbue unexpected humour, but it is only ever partially effective as a device.
On the evening of 20th April 1945 — coincidentally Hitler’s last birthday — many grotesquely cruel historical acts are introduced and glossed-over during the men’s conversation, superficially offering narrative balance and an explanation of the Nazi hierarchy’s reasoning and subsequent justifications for their extermination of the Jewish people. The measured self-delusion is as jarring to listen to as the ranting holocaust deniers of today.
Ultimately, the play is a commendable effort which aims to deliver a potentially fascinating encounter within the historical context of an ideologically crumbling regime. However, with so much factual information to impart the actors have only limited opportunities to delivered fully realised three-dimensional characters.
Fittingly, the production’s first preview performance in front of an audience was 27th April, Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day).
Maintaining its freshness and bubbly energy with a recent cast change, the jukebox musical 