REVIEW: What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank at Marylebone Theatre 4 Oct – 23 November 2024

Photography – Mark Senior

´Cerebral, but pacey and funny, debate about Jewishness`★★★★

This is a play for thinking grown ups. It’s cerebral and leaves you thinking hard but it’s also grippingly pacey (bravo director, Patrick Marber) and very funny. And that blend is quite some achievement.

Two couples meet in the luxurious Florida home of Phil (Joshua Malina) and Debbie (Caroline Catz). Phil and Debbie are secular Jews. Their visitors Shoshana (Dorothea Myer-Bennett) and Yerucham (Simon Yadoo) are orthodox Hasidic Jews visiting from Israel. The connection is that Shoshana, formerly known as Lauren, and Debbie were at school together. The four of them talk, disagree, challenge each other and eventually get hostile although none of them leaves. Also in the mix is Phil and Debbie’s son Trevor, who is the hilarious voice of common sense, acts as quasi narrator/umpire and is beautifully played - with immaculately observed insouciance and splendid comic timing - by Gabriel Howell.

Nathan Englander’s play is based on his own 2012 short story. Written before October 7^th, it has had to be revised several times because it is set firmly in the present. Only a fraction of it is about the war, though. The argumentative conversation ranges from sexual abstention during menstruation, the conflict between Orthodox and Western clothes, the orthodox horror of intermarriage, the holocaust, how the descendants of survivors relate to their history and each other and – a term which was new to me - Israel’s ethno-nationalism. Of course, current antisemitism trends are there too along with a poignant, dramatic game which tests the loyalties of each individual.

All four actors play well off each other with Joshua Malina standing out as the cynical host with a good line in jokes not to mention fascinated incredulity at some of beliefs of his visitors. When it gets really heated, Trevor turns up and treats them to a devastating debunking of religious belief. He argues forcefully (I’m summarising here) that it’s time to stop worrying about territorialism and the precise nature of something called God because we simply need to look after the environment in which we all live instead of destroying it.   It’s a stage-stopping moment.

There are a couple of issues, however in this otherwise fine play. First, the ages don’t add up. World War Two and the holocaust ended 79 years ago. There’s a lot of talk about being the children of survivors. If we assume the four main characters in the play are in their fifties (grown up children etc) then their parents would probably be in their seventies and too young to have been in concentration camps. So, we have to assume it was grandparents and other family members although they never say so.

Second, this is a play which consists entirely of lively, often angry discussion. I wondered throughout how on earth Englander and Marber would end it. They choose a rather tame dance drama, and it feels like an unsatisfactory damp squib.

Neither of these things, however, dents the overall quality and intensity of a very arresting two hours of theatre.

Box Office https://www.marylebonetheatre.com/#Whats-On 

Susan Elkin has been reviewing theatre for over thirty years.