An impressive, imaginative, incisive and enjoyably theatrical dissection of antisemitism, with some wonderfully articulate Jews
Jonathan Freedland’s first venture into writing for the stage is billed in the programme not as a play but a ‘theatrical enquiry’: carefully chosen phrasing, to describe a brave undertaking by this seasoned journalist. It was actor Tracy-Ann Oberman (played here by Louisa Clein), billed as ‘co-creator’ with Freedland, who had the original idea for a show which feels like The Royal Court’s expiation for at least one high-profile antisemitic gaffe. But does it work as a ‘get out of jail almost-free’ card?
It’s worth noting upfront that the production is co-directed by Royal Court Artistic Director Vicky Featherstone and Jewish Director Audrey Sheffield, whose impressive CV includes The Dybbuk at The Almeida and the Pinter at the Pinter season. Her involvement suggests a welcome sensitivity from Featherstone and the Court.
Freedland’s chosen form is verbatim drama, adapted from interviews he conducted himself. At least one of the superb seven-strong cast has previous experience of the rigours of verbatim theatre at its most exact and exacting, where players wear headphones and learn to repeat their lines precisely as the ‘real’ people spoke them for timing and intonation. But, here, leeway is given, not least because most of Freedland’s interlocutors are high-profile public figures, including politicians Margaret Hodge (portrayed by Debbie Chazen) and Luciana Berger (also Clein) as well as novelist Howard Jacobson (Steve Furst), who is followed round the stage by the admiring exclamation ‘He won the Booker!’ from the rest of the cast until the audience finds it as tiresome as Jacobson, presumably, did himself.
Completing the line-up of Jewish voices are Hannah Rose, ex-president of the Union of Jewish Students, and social worker Victoria Hart, a fearless challenger of antisemitism recently elected to the Board of Deputies (both embodied by Rachel-Leah Hosker); paediatrician Tammy Rothenberg (Chazen again); mixed-race journalist Stephen Bush (Billy Ashcroft); Talmudist Joshua Bitensky (a pseudonym) and Edwin Shuker, originally from Baghdad (both portrayed by Hemi Yeroham); decorator Philip Abrahams (also Furst); and Dave Rich, Policy Director at the Community Security Trust, which combats antisemitism in vital practical ways, including training guards to protect Synagogues and other Jewish communal buildings and events. Played by Alex Waldmann, his voice runs through the ‘enquiry’ as a sober narrator.
What are these Jews talking about in their own words and are they worth hearing? I guess it’s a given that it’s antisemitism, notably the lived experience of Freedland’s interviewees – especially the women, mercilessly targeted and threatened, sometimes with extreme sexual violence – in the age of social media. Their experience is contextualised against the long, deep history of antisemitism in England, going right back to Lincoln in 1255 and the first-known instance of the infamous blood libel, the appalling false accusation that Jews would catch and kill Christian children to use their blood to make matzah.
Lest you should think this all sounds rather worthy – and wordy – think again! Theatrical devices range from the company hotly debating round a table to larger-than-life commedia dell’arte figures in grotesque masks, make up and costumes depicting Jewish stereotypes (design by Georgia de Grey), taking in the fun of comedy song and dance routines. There is real dramatic and comic invention here from the get-go, as the lights go up on a biblical-looking mountain peak wreathed in cloud, towering over a prostrate male figure. It’s not Moses, but an imagined embodiment of one Hershel Fink. This was the stereotypical Jewish name given to the money-grabbing billionaire in Al Smith’s play Rare Earth Metal, the episode which got the Royal Court into so much trouble last year and inspired Oberman to suggest the show.
Alex Waldmann’s Fink is called out by God (female of course) and we’re off on a heady, breathless canter through the toxicity of antisemitism, wherever and however it materialises. Unsurprisingly, Jeremy Corbyn’s utterances and their potentially disastrous repercussions for Labour are in the spotlight, as eyebrows are raised because it’s a left-wing display of racism that leads to this debacle. Setting them against the shocking online abuse and misogyny experienced by Hodge and Berger proves truly thought provoking.
The audience on press night may have been predominantly Jewish (David Baddiel was there watching a show that seemed to me a natural extension of his own exploration of antisemitism in his book Jews Don’t Count) but I hope it attracts audiences of a range of faiths and backgrounds, for it has much to say to us all.
By Judi Herman
Photos by Manuel Harlan
Jews. In Their Own Words. runs until Saturday 22 October. 7.30pm, 2.30pm (Thu & Sat only). £12-£49. Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, SW1W 8AS. royalcourttheatre.com