REVIEW: WHO IS CLAUDE CAHUN? at Southwark Playhouse, Borough 18 June – 12 July 2025
'Visually engaging '★★★ 1/2
If you thought Jersey might be the dullest place in the British Isles, then prepare to have this idea blown out the water. Not only was Jersey occupied by the Nazis in World War II, but it was also home to an LGBTQ+ Icon, one even too weird and unfathomable for the Surrealists, a Guerrilla artist before Banksy, a sexual outlaw, Jewish lesbian, and a subversive performer. Who is Claude Cahun? by D.R Hill brings the story of this extraordinary, layered, and multifaceted individual, for many decades a footnote in art history, to the stage where she can bask in the spotlight.
This production by DRH Arts in Association with Exchange Theatre and directed by David Furlong moves back and forth between the avant-garde art scene of 1930s Paris and stultifying provincial, German-occupied Jersey of the 1940s. At the heart of this narrative is a love story between two women: Lucy Schwob (AKA Claude Cahun) and her partner and photographer, Marcel Moore who live together on the island. When Schwob’s birthmother, a ball of raging despotic disappointment, played by Sharon Drain, is sent to the asylum, her father married Moore’s mother, legally binding the two as step-sisters and providing the cover they need for the love that dare not speak its name.
The androgynous Claude Cahun, who wears men’s clothes and smokes a pipe, is played by Rivkah Bunker who channels a young and earnest Frances de la Tour. Her appearance is sympathetic to photographs of Cahun, an assemblage of flat planes and right angles, “she looks like a man” , comments one of the Nazis. Her ‘sister’, Amelia Armande conveys a softer, more maternal presence, a tea dress clad, supportive partner – the kind of ‘wife’ every artist needs. By day, they give the impression of quiet, conforming sisters but under cover of darkness, they plaster anti-war slogans around the island to resist fascism; Cahun is the ‘soldier with no name.’ When caught, they are tried and sentenced to hanging but eventually reprieved by a Nazi with a heart.
At 2 hours 15 with an interval, Who is Claude Cahun? feels unnecessarily long. A cast of five, two men and three women, gamely multi-role. The male characters are often quite comical. Andre Breton (Gethin Alderman) and George Bataille (Ben Bela Böhm) are almost preposterous as the egotistical artists leading the surrealist way, in many ways too fixed and conventional to embrace Cahun. Nazis and nosy neighbours have a similarly pantomime quality but what’s quite interesting is how certain they all are. “A good German does not have doubts. He knows who he is.” This idea of absolutism is rendered rather quaint while Cahun’s ambiguity, uncertainty and questioning of her own identity and her place in the world, seems more contemporary. She was ahead of her time in many ways.
Visually and aesthetically, lots of thought has gone into this production which recreates key photographs through both costumes, dramatic masks & capes by Carla Joy Evans and evocative projection mapping by Jeffrey Choy. These clearly explain both the historical context and creative/political impulses of the artist. The script shines a light on some of the frustrations of her silent photographer partner who gave such a vital visual record to the world. There is probably too much exposition and a slightly uncomfortable dramatic relationship between the historic reenactments and more abstract segments of the Cahun sensibility which combine movement & song. Some of the transitions feel clunky, making us aware we are watching a play. Despite it being a very thorough examination of the artist’s life and story, it is somewhat passionless when it comes to the core relationship. Nonetheless, there’s plenty to enjoy and consider here, namely the remarkable story of an artist everyone should know and the rehabilitation of Jersey as a place of interest.
Photography: Paddy Gormley
The Company
Rivkah Bunker
Claude Cahun
Amelia Armande
Marcel Moore
Ben Bela Böhm
multiple roles
Sharon Drain
multiple roles
Gethin Alderman
multiple roles
D.R. Hill
Writer
David Furlong
Director
Juliette Demoulin
Designer
Jeffrey Choy
Moving Image and Projection Mapping
Matthew Biss
Lighting Designer
Carla Joy Evans
Costume Designer
