‘The plan…” says Anna Quangel (Charlotte Emmerson) with all the tact she can muster, “… it feels a bit small.” She doesn’t want to undermine her husband, Otto (played with buttoned-up dignity by Denis Conway), but she has a point. If their situation wasn’t so horrific, his plan would be comically minor.
We’re in 1930s Germany and his idea is to resist the Nazi war machine by leaving handwritten slogans on postcards, where they may be discovered by his fellow Berliners. In Hans Fallada’s superb novel, based on a true story and now given a streamlined adaptation by Alistair Beaton, this act of defiance carries weight. Not only is it better than nothing but it has a disproportionately destabilising impact on the authorities. They are bullishly inept, just as the crooks who profiteer from a regime of hatred and suspicion are bumbling opportunists.
James Dacre’s compelling production plays it less as black comedy than as expressionist nightmare. Charles Balfour lights the ensemble in stark relief against the false perspective of Jonathan Fensom’s monochrome set, while Jessica Walker acts as a cabaret narrator, singing songs by Orlando Gough that channel the dark irony of Kurt Weill. Anyone excited about David Tennant starring in CP Taylor’s Good this October should not miss this similar study of compromise and survival in times of tyranny.
Lest we lull ourselves into believing such dilemmas have been consigned to history, Beaton nudges us into the present. “Nobody minds being lied to any more,” says Otto, prompting a knowing laugh. It reminds us that truth is the first casualty of war and calls on us to do something – anything – in the face of injustice.
At the Royal and Derngate, Northampton, until 29 February. Then touring.
