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At first glance, The Land of the Living appears to have all the makings of a major theatrical event. It marks David Lan’s first significant British production since stepping down as Artistic Director of the Young Vic in 2018, and the man behind the global puppet tour Little Amal returns with the same fierce convictions that have long defined his work. Factor in multi-award-winning director Stephen Daldry and Juliet Stevenson in the lead role, and it looks like a recipe for a surefire stage hit.
And yet the conundrum of The Land of the Living is that, for all its pedigree, something essential and affecting never quite materialises. Set in the aftermath of the Second World War, the play unfolds like a mystery. Stevenson plays Ruth, an employee of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, tasked with rehoming displaced children.
Soon, however, she uncovers a far darker assignment. In certain towns, she finds “special” children – those abducted from Eastern Europe under the Nazis’ abhorrent Lebensborn programme – and takes it upon herself to reunite them with their real families.
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Decades later, in 1990, one of those children – Thomas (Tom Wlaschiha) – turns up at Ruth’s London home with pressing questions. As Ruth begins to explain the reasons for her actions, visions of their shared past spill across the stage. Daldry’s production seamlessly blends past and present, memory and actuality, with an ensemble of 15 actors working hard to animate each scene.
Set on Miriam Buether’s giant traverse stage, with a small kitchen on one side and a door, library, and piano on the other, the design has the difficult task of being many places at once. Trapdoors open, a hidden forest is revealed on the back wall, while Thomas is always present, watching his past unfold. Still, for much of the play, the space feels too cold and vacuous to sustain intimacy.
Aside from the young Thomas – played by Artie Wilkinson-Hunt on press night – Daldry keeps the rest of the children as phantoms. Heard only through a soundscape designed by Gareth Fry, filled with laughter, cries, and natter, their existence is only ever half-felt. Both visible and invisible, they are unquestionably innocent casualties of the war. Yet, by not fully experiencing them, their tragedy never lands with full force.
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It is a thoroughly investigated piece of work, based on interviews with the journalist Gitta Sereny, who worked for UNRRA in southern Germany in the war’s immediate aftermath. Lan is not afraid to dig into knotty moral territory. In its strongest moments, the play becomes a rigorous character study; Ruth’s believed good conscience is pushed at and scrutinised, never allowing her – or the audience – to settle into simple moral certainties.
But Stevenson, although as assured onstage as ever, seems to lack compassion. For the play to fly, we need to believe in the sincerity of her attachment to Thomas and in her total adoration of him. Yet, when she finally reveals her motherly love, it comes across as somewhat measured. Although the play runs close to three hours, their relationship needs more time to grow.
There are some knockout performances. Kate Duchene plays the flustered aid worker Dora with deeply ingrained humanity, while Wilkinson-Hunt is a diamond in the rough. Switching languages without missing a beat and hurling plates in rage across the theatre, his presence is electrifying. In a production that sometimes feels hollow, he remains its beating heart.
The Land of the Living at the National Theatre, until November 1, nationaltheatre.org.uk
