WHO IS CLAUDE CAHUN?
Southwark Playhouse Borough
★★
“Director David Furlong deftly and clearly steers the action back and forth in time”
There are two dramatic themes that are being played out in Rowland Hill’s play, “Who is Claude Cahun?”, that seem to be competing with each other. Essentially it is about two individuals’ fight against the rise of fascism in the 1930s and their experiences during the second world war. On the other hand, it is a love story between a photographic artist and her muse using today’s transgender and queer ideology to explain the dynamics of their relationship. Hill’s writing creates a conflict between the two rather than blending them together into a coherent narrative. The former wins. We get a fine perspective of Claude Cahun’s – along with their lover Marcel Moore – resistance work following the German occupation of Jersey, but the crucial question in the title of the play is left unanswered.
Claude Cahun was born Lucy Schwob into a well-off Jewish family. After attending the Sorbonne, they adopted the pseudonym and began making photographic self-portraits, eventually collaborating in the 1920s with lifelong partner Marcel Moore (born Suzanne Malherbe). Although Cahun received the recognition for their artwork, Moore’s integral contribution went largely unrecognised. Rivkah Bunker and Amelia Armande, who play Cahun and Moore respectively, give mannered performances that are generally too polite to express the groundbreaking relevance of their works and lives. In their struggle to identify themselves we also have little to latch onto either. It is a slow burn, and it is difficult to match the lack of fire with the passion needed to fuel their resistance and activism work during World War II.
Director David Furlong deftly and clearly steers the action back and forth in time, showing us snippets of the young Cahun before returning to the house in Jersey in which Claude and Marcel are forced to accommodate members of the Gestapo; all the while covertly carrying out their activism – or ‘guerilla art’ as they called it – distributing anti-German fliers and poetry under the title of ‘The Soldier with No Name’. Among other roles, Ben Bela Böhm and Gethin Alderman are two, somewhat witless, Nazi officers led on a cat and mouse chase by the couple. There is an overall lack of tension, although glimmers of the danger do shine through when Claude Cahun is finally cornered and questioned. Bunker’s cool portrayal of the resilience of Claude’s character is a quiet and strong episode in an otherwise confused narrative.
Awkward attempts at physical theatre, which are intended to mirror the couple’s affinity with the surrealist movement, are at odds with the naturalism of the cast’s performances. More successful is the use of Jeffrey Choy’s video design, incorporating images of the real-life characters, as well as placing us firmly in time and place with captions. A modern approach that still adds to the old-fashioned feel of the piece.
In the first act, particularly, there is little in the writing or performances to make sense of – or justify – the emphasis on twenty-first century trans self-representation. Nor do we get a sense of the androgyny and the blurring of gender that informed their lives and work. During the occupation, the couple were forced to give the outward impression that they were sisters, living together as ‘good housekeepers’. However, that portrayal was little different from what we see in their backstory as the so-called progressive artists. Tokens of mask work and linguistic gestures are not enough to underline the importance of their work and their pioneering representation of gender identity.
The often-untold story of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore is a fascinating and vital one that should resonate with everything that is happening today. Hill’s writing certainly brings it to light, without fully bringing it to life.
WHO IS CLAUDE CAHUN?
Southwark Playhouse Borough
Reviewed on 20th June 2025
by Jonathan Evans
Last ten shows reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:
THIS IS MY FAMILY | ★★½ | May 2025
THE FROGS | ★★★ | May 2025
RADIANT BOY | ★★½ | May 2025
SUPERSONIC MAN | ★★★★ | April 2025
MIDNIGHT COWBOY | ★★ | April 2025
WILKO | ★★★ | March 2025
SON OF A BITCH | ★★★★ | February 2025
SCISSORHANDZ | ★★★ | January 2025
CANNED GOODS | ★★★ | January 2025
THE MASSIVE TRAGEDY OF MADAME BOVARY | ★★★ | December 2024
