What is history, and how much are our lives shaped by the past? Even if we don’t know much about that past. Susan thinks that she knows what history is. History is her grandfather’s letter to the wife he would never see again, neatly labelled and translated in the Jewish museum in Berlin. But while an artefact may hint at the complexity of family and emotional histories, it is only one part of a far bigger story.
In Rose Lewenstein’s heartfelt family drama, Rosie goes to study German and live in Berlin just as her grandmother, Eva (Brigit Forsyth), begins to decline with dementia. Eva lived in Berlin as a child before being dispatched to safety in the UK after the arrest of her Jewish father. But what did she leave behind? Her identity? The trust to really love another person? A strong connection to a place? Rosie and her German boyfriend, Sebastian, argue over the meaning of the German word heimat, often simply translated as “home”, but meaning so much more. Perhaps some feelings and connections are untranslatable?
This is rough and ready stuff, but Lewenstein’s writing is full of the snap and crackle of family life, the tensions between mothers and daughters over three generations, the need to know about the past, and the urge to keep things safely buried. Because when history is unearthed it often surprises and sometimes it hurts, too.
This is a small, quiet play, but it hums with life. There are flaws: it’s oddly structured and its central character, Rosie, is underwritten, far too passive – although Jasmine Blackborow injects some vim. It ends just when it seems to be getting started. But it’s watchable, isn’t afraid of creating characters who are hard to like, and it reminds us that what is meant by history depends on where you are standing.
At Arcola, London until 27 June. Box office: 020-7503 1646.
