Rose doesn’t imagine sooner or later. It’s onerous to look ahead when there’s a lot previous to cope with. On this reminiscence play, its Jewish heroine sits shiva – mourning for the various useless.
Martin Sherman’s solo play summoning the Jewish twentieth century premiered in 1999. Maureen Lipman starred in an internet manufacturing early within the pandemic – now she will get to spellbind in particular person. Typically goofily bodily, right here she is rivetingly contained, all restraint and charm notes (although the colorful, overenthusiastic lighting design could make her appear trapped in a lava lamp). She’ll crack a joke then watch us quizzically; chasms open behind the twinkle. Tears fall unbidden, barely acknowledged: Rose’s flip is an unsentimental one.
Lipman’s heroine sounds incredulous at her journey from the tough shtetl: “If in case you have your first interval and your first pogrom in the identical month, you'll be able to safely assume childhood is over.” Persecution’s mindless cruelty is a recurrent thread: the Warsaw ghetto and the unyielding postwar British, navy ire directed at refugees in leaky boats that also feels all too acquainted.
Rose evokes her fervent first husband after which her klutzy second, bringing her from exhausted Europe to the Jewish vacation resort of Atlantic Metropolis (“The air smelled of aspirin and hen fats and suntan oil”). Nobody there desires tales from the Shoah: Rose’s son and grandchildren ultimately depart her world of chopped liver and dybbuks to settle in Israel: “Your shadows are killing us,” they insist. That milk and honey dream additionally sours – Rose is bewildered by Jews wielding rifles. Fervour turns into fanaticism, leaving her behind.
Sherman (finest recognized for Bent) is a author of broad brushstrokes; what you hear is what you get. Regardless of its wry gags (“Jews aren’t visible – have a look at what they put on”), the play turns into mired in claggy exposition and an episode of blunt whimsy when Rose invokes her first husband’s spirit.
Scott Le Crass’s manufacturing suggests Jewish id as an act of reminiscence, even when recollection is the very last thing you'll be able to bear. Rose, who all the time seems like a displaced particular person, makes the century actual by remembering it – she’s her personal stressed dybbuk.
At Park theatre, London, till 15 October
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