“a fun show on an interesting topic, although it lacked both the messages to be moving and the execution to be effective“
Nigel Osner presents nine individual characters as he sings, acts and performs poetry with the night interspersed with Osner’s conversational segways. The play focuses on the ageing figures and attempts to portray personal stories of being and becoming old. These personalities come through as our host dons simple costumes pre-placed on the small stage, all while the audience chuckles at rhyming jokes and knowing wit.
The nine personas don’t exactly run the gamut; sometimes ranging from a posh man in love with a young man to a regional man in love with a young woman to a posh (American) woman in love with two young men. There are sections not about love; one lady murders her travelling companion and another experiences the inevitable health issues which come with age – but the writing and performance leave even those episodes feeling more and more like the others. Consistent poetic and lyrical structures, not to mention the uniform backing track, allow each section to slouch into a differently-coloured version of the same message: I wish I wasn’t old.
Technically, Osner wasn’t quite as strong as this one-handed all singing, all acting, production demands. The generic accents were solid but sometimes lacked humanity. The singing was very passable but it may have been better if the warm-up had been done off-stage rather than in the first two numbers. That said, the poetry was entertaining and provided the real laughs for the show – there was giggling and energy as attendees learnt the pattern and began to preempt the second half to each couplet.
Unfortunately, due to its accidental autobiographical style and loose performance, the show often felt old itself. At times, it was less a tribute to old age and more a tribute to a retiring drama teacher, featuring said (much loved) drama teacher. The night didn’t drag as Osner’s cleverness and obvious enjoyment was entertaining but with the observations superficial and the high notes painful, this audience member couldn’t help thinking that it was time to clap and present Mr Osner with a bottle of wine and a collected works of Shakespeare.
This was a fun show on an interesting topic, although it lacked both the messages to be moving and the execution to be effective. What was left was a shaky show with just enough fun one-liners, funny twists, and witty verses to be energetically enjoyable and pleasantly amusing.
“it is the supporting roles that hold the most interest, perhaps due to their relative freedom from the constrains of the main plot sequence“
In British classrooms and history books, the Nazi occupation of France, Poland, and the Netherlands are all seen as integral to any analysis of World War II. However, upon reading about The German Girls ahead of Thursday night’s performance, I realised how little I knew about the occupation of Denmark, despite it perhaps being (save Austria) Germany’s closest cultural cousins. In the programme for the show, director Michelle Payne admits that she was almost completely in the dark about the period herself. Unsurprisingly, however, this was not the case for Danish actor and playwright Christina Tranholm whose new play explores the shattering of young lives in this darkest of times.
The plot hinges around the lives of four women working at a laundrette during the occupation. In particular the piece focuses on Ingrid (Tranholm), a kind if naïve young woman whose humdrum life at first seems barely affected by the upheaval around her. Indeed, as we discover, in the first few years of occupation, the German Wehrmacht was met with almost no resistance by their northern neighbours, a stark contrast to other fronts earning Denmark the nickname of “the playground”. However, as the war wears on, Danish resentment begins to set in, with resistance movements often spilling over into outright violence. At the same time, Ingrid finds herself falling in love with a young German soldier, Matthias (Liam Harkins), just when such an act is at its most dangerous.
The backdrop to the piece is naturally intense, and Tranholm is able to carefully weave the friction of first love with the wider trauma of the war. At its best, her writing captures how easily simple humanity can be crushed under the bootheels of conflict. And yet, the piece often suffers from seemingly inconsistent exposition.
On the one hand, as we discover in the programme, many of the scenes were workshopped by the actors during writing and the characters developed organically. In the scenes where this is apparent, the play comes alive. The interplay between the women working at the laundrette is natural and playful, and the later transition to darkness and discord therefore hits even harder.
By contrast, many of the links between scenes are in the form of choreographed quasi-dance pieces set to dark, echoey electronic music all of which jars horribly with the tone set by the drama. The thinking behind this juxtaposition is unclear and, as far as I’m concerned, doesn’t work. The plot regularly feels in too much of a rush, which is a shame given the careful pace and subtlety of its best moments. Large sections of the story are explained -or rather explained away- in by-numbers monologues over similarly doomy music.
Each of the performances are assured, although it is the supporting roles that hold the most interest, perhaps due to their relative freedom from the constrains of the main plot sequence. Sara Hooppell, Rachel Laboucarie and Bryony McCarthy make good use of the close-quarters staging and dialogue that has been developed in workshop and George Whitehead provides reliable comic relief.
The German Girls is both historically enlightening and, when it works, a heart-breaking account of the banality of evil that breeds on both sides of a conflict. Tranholm’s piece aims to spark conversation, and indeed it does, but upon leaving the theatre I couldn’t help but feel as though I wanted more.
