Once Upon A Time In Nazi Occupied Tunisia - Almeida Theatre
Aug 30, 2021 22:08:17 GMT
Marwood, dlevi, and 2 more like this
Post by joem on Aug 30, 2021 22:08:17 GMT
A new play by Josh Azouz which is a mish-mash of styles which don't always come off and, at times, end up working against each other.
The setting is Tunisia during the Nazi occupation, presumably in 1942 from the snippets of history given during the performance, and the main characters are two couples who have been friends for a very long time (maybe even from childhood) of whom two are Jewish and two are Muslims and make up two sets of couples with a frustrated love interest spanning the religious divide. That's as Ayckbournish as it gets, after this it's a fairly vague tale of arrests and beatings and subterfuges which lead to an Ortonesque denouement of black farce.
You could call this a play of ideas with its themes of friendship and loyalty and brutality and what it takes to survive in a mad world. You can add to this relevance in that it confronts squarely the problems of occupation and exile in the context of the Israeli/Palestinian situation. But, unfortunately, when you have a well-known comic actor like Adrian Edmondson, popping his head out of a crate like a jack-in-the-box and jerking said head about with poppy eyes delivering wisecracks and looking and acting for all the world like Colonel Klink in the old POW sitcom "Hogan's Heroes".... it becomes difficult to take a serious view of world problems past and present. It is a bit theatre of the absurd but the narrative is far too straight for it be considered as such.
Also, it has to be said, the language is often clunky - too many modern idioms and attitudes: this has the feel less of a set of characters in Second World War North Africa and more of a set of British actors in 2021 playing a set of characters, with not much lip service to the atmosphere of the times.
There is some merit in the production and the play but the drama and comedy clash rather than complement each other which inevitably ends with the bewildered audience laughing at the wrong moments.
Mixed feelings.
The setting is Tunisia during the Nazi occupation, presumably in 1942 from the snippets of history given during the performance, and the main characters are two couples who have been friends for a very long time (maybe even from childhood) of whom two are Jewish and two are Muslims and make up two sets of couples with a frustrated love interest spanning the religious divide. That's as Ayckbournish as it gets, after this it's a fairly vague tale of arrests and beatings and subterfuges which lead to an Ortonesque denouement of black farce.
You could call this a play of ideas with its themes of friendship and loyalty and brutality and what it takes to survive in a mad world. You can add to this relevance in that it confronts squarely the problems of occupation and exile in the context of the Israeli/Palestinian situation. But, unfortunately, when you have a well-known comic actor like Adrian Edmondson, popping his head out of a crate like a jack-in-the-box and jerking said head about with poppy eyes delivering wisecracks and looking and acting for all the world like Colonel Klink in the old POW sitcom "Hogan's Heroes".... it becomes difficult to take a serious view of world problems past and present. It is a bit theatre of the absurd but the narrative is far too straight for it be considered as such.
Also, it has to be said, the language is often clunky - too many modern idioms and attitudes: this has the feel less of a set of characters in Second World War North Africa and more of a set of British actors in 2021 playing a set of characters, with not much lip service to the atmosphere of the times.
There is some merit in the production and the play but the drama and comedy clash rather than complement each other which inevitably ends with the bewildered audience laughing at the wrong moments.
Mixed feelings.
