“There are more laughs than might be expected balanced with a poignancy that brought some of this audience close to tears”
Ardent Theatre Company presents the story, written by Tracy Ryan, of nine Irish shopgirls and one shop boy who after refusing to handle South African goods embark on nearly three years of strike action which culminates in a landmark ruling from the Irish parliament.
The set is effectively simple (Designer Libby Watson): a set of double doors in front of which a picket line will be formed for much of the action. The name of the Dublin store Dunnes is spelt out in coloured lights. A monochrome outline of what will become South Africa’s national flag is painted out on the floor.
The story starts within the store itself and a group of high-spirited shop girls are preparing to start work, changing their clothes into the regulation shop uniform. One of them, Mary Manning (Chloe O’Reilly) is about to change their lives forever when following an edict from their Union, she refuses to handle a South African grapefruit. She is duly suspended by the shop management and a walk out in solidarity from all the shopgirls ensues.
From time to time, a narrator tells us where we are. Karen (Jessica Regan) ably takes the brunt of this task but the role is nicely shared around other characters. There are two stories being told here. Firstly, that of the camaraderie and resilience of the striking shop-workers and then that of the bigger picture, the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Amidst much light-heartedness, a dignity is provided with the arrival of Nimrod Sejake (Mensah Bediako), a South African exile of twenty years and former prison mate of Nelson Mandela. From him the shop-workers (and the audience) learn of the horrors of the apartheid regime and why the strike really matters.
As the story progresses, we learn small bits about each of the strikers in turn. Much amusing repartee forms around the effervescent Liz (Anne O’Riordan); Vonnie (Doireann May White) is in danger of losing her house; Tommy (Adam Isla O’Brien) is beaten up by the Garda in a brilliantly danced solo scene with effective blood red spotlighting (Lighting Designer Jamie Platt). Versatile Paul Carroll takes up the double roles of sleazy tie-fiddling shop manager Paul and Union Leader Brendan with just the change of a sweater and a restyling of his hair.
But this is predominantly an ensemble piece and the slick movement of the group, directed by Kirsty Patrick Ward, is excellent and the sharing of dialogue fluent. Small set pieces within the narrative provide dramatic variety. The ensemble don headscarves to become a group of angry mothers, sport plastic bags and umbrellas for a scene in the rain, sing a beautifully performed rendition of trade union folk classic Which Side Are You On?
There is much to be enjoyed here in a non-stop ninety minutes. There are more laughs than might be expected balanced with a poignancy that brought some of this audience close to tears. The tale is well-presented, brilliantly performed, and, at the same time, both genuinely moving and entertaining.
“The fine cast … do their best to instil compassion and nuance but are obstructed by too many facts and a stilted script”
On 19th April 1945 Norbert Masur, a Swedish activist and highly regarded representative of the World Jewish Congress, boarded a plane, emblazoned with a swastika, from Stockholm to Berlin. From there he was taken under cover of darkness to the home of Felix Kersten, Heinrich Himmler’s personal physiotherapist. Understandably Masur comes with fear and loathing; especially as it has been arranged for him to meet with the Reichsführer to persuade him to release prisoners from the Nazi concentration camps. It is the eve of Hitler’s final birthday; Germany’s surrender is imminent, and the Third Reich is collapsing. Days are numbered. The covert meeting is taking place without the Fürher’s knowledge. Himmler’s betrayal of Hitler is casting off its cloak of caution it seems, although we cannot trust his reasons for agreeing to the meeting.
The premise is riveting and Jason Taylor’s lighting with Michael Pavelka’s design evoke the right degree of trepidation and tension. Yet while the stakes are high, Ben Brown’s text and Alan Strachan’s staging bring them down to almost floor level in this rather lifeless production. The language has the dull flavour of domesticity that makes light of the shadows and the foreshadows that hang over the topics addressed. Ben Caplan’s Norbert Masur bookends the piece with context setting exposition which is mirrored by the overly urbane and polite dialogue that misrepresents the awful details. The fine cast, including Richard Clothier as the self-assured Himmler and Michael Lumsden as an amiable and slightly obsequious Kersten, do their best to instil compassion and nuance but are obstructed by too many facts and a stilted script.
It should be shocking. The denial of the Holocaust – a vicious product of Nazism and anti-Semitism – is a shocking historical fact. But we need more than Himmler stating, in a rather lazy RP, “I personally have never had a problem with your people”, or “I’ve never acted maliciously”. There is talk of “burying the hatchet” that bounces off the exposition so incongruously that it feels almost like a comedy sketch. Yet the introduction of humour arrives like a nervous gate crasher. If Brown is attempting irony, it doesn’t work.
Himmler left the meeting promising to release a thousand Jews form the camps. Masur is not satisfied but, as he says, ‘it’s a start’. We leave the auditorium with similar misgivings. Olivia Bernstone, as one of the survivors of the camp, suddenly appears and delivers a footnote describing the release from her perspective. Dramatically it is out of place, but it does add a touch of poignancy albeit too little too late.
