CANNED GOODS

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★

“The final scenes are affecting – the clever use of lighting being one of the stars of the show”

A farmer, a petty thief and a Jewish philosopher walk up to some bars. Sounds like the beginning of a bad taste joke. And it is. This is the sickest of all jokes as the three mismatched Third Reich prisoners – the eponymous Canned Goods – are fattened, flattered and sold a lie about their date with destiny.

So why are they receiving unexpected kindnesses from their SS jailers? The answer is to be found in the programme notes which somewhat drains the evening of tension.

This is writer Erik Kahn’s retelling of the Gleiwitz incident on August 31, 1939, which effectively began World War Two.

The Gleiwitz Incident was a false flag operation carried out by Nazi Germany to create a pretext for invading Poland. In the incident, SS operatives, dressed in Polish military uniforms, attacked a German radio station in the town of Gleiwitz.

To bolster the illusion, they used the bodies of prisoners, dressed them in Polish uniforms, and left them at the site as “evidence” for the Press to photograph.

Much of what is known about Gleiwitz comes from the affidavit of SS-Sturmbannführer Alfred Naujocks at the Nuremberg trials. In this uneven production, Naujocks – all oily smiles, cognac, and swirling cigarette smoke – re-creates the operation as grand theatre, alluding to our complicity as docile and gullible voyeurs.

Among those whose bodies were left behind were that of Honiok (Tom Wells) who had Polish sympathies. Others were anonymous prisoners of Dachau and here they are revived and given names and lives to lose. They are wry Jewish teacher Birnbaum (Charlie Archer) and petty criminal and anti-Semite Kruger (Rowan Polonski), naively patriotic to the end. Archer and Polonski provide the most nuanced performances of an evening consisting mostly of archetypes.

The conceit is rich in potential – stick three contrasting figures in a cell, give them an occasional stir by the provocative Naujacks (a lupine Dan Parr) and then set them raging against the dying of the light. But the three never have time to evolve much beyond their prescriptive origin stories, the script lacking rhythm and momentum in director Charlotte Cohn’s ambitious but over fussy production.

The play is presented as a series of academic explorations of war – from polemics on anti-Semitism, to the role of God on the battlefield – issued as pleas from clueless pawns in a global conflict.

The prisoners, whose performances are rigorous and well-constructed, hold out the tantalising hope that they might break free from their oratorical straitjackets and become rounded characters, but this promise is too frequently snatched away in the rush to hammer home some on-the-nose point about Hitler being a bad sort.

The final scenes are affecting – the clever use of lighting (by Ryan Joseph Stafford) being one of the stars of the show. And the image of a press photographer posing bodies brings us smack up to date with evocations of Abu Ghraib and the shocking iconography of degradation.

Ultimately, though, the play demands less of us than the subject matter should insist upon.

CANNED GOODS

Southwark Playhouse Borough

Reviewed on 20th January 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Mark Senior

Recently reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:

THE MASSIVE TRAGEDY OF MADAME BOVARY | ★★★ | December 2024

THE HAPPIEST MAN ON EARTH | ★★★★★ | November 2024

[TITLE OF SHOW] | ★★★ | November 2024

THE UNGODLY | ★★★ | October 2024

FOREVERLAND | ★★★★ | October 2024

JULIUS CAESAR | ★★★ | September 2024

DORIAN: THE MUSICAL | ★★½ | July 2024

THE BLEEDING TREE | ★★★★ | June 2024

FUN AT THE BEACH ROMP-BOMP-A-LOMP!! | ★★★ | May 2024

MAY 35th | ★★★½ | May 2024

SAPPHO | ★★ | May 2024

CAPTAIN AMAZING | ★★★★★ | May 2024

WHY I STUCK A FLARE UP MY ARSE FOR ENGLAND | ★★★★★ | April 2024

SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE VALLEY OF FEAR | ★★½ | March 2024

POLICE COPS: THE MUSICAL | ★★★★ | March 2024

Canned Goods

★★★★

“Felicity Huffman making her UK stage debut is mesmeric as Paige”

HIR pronounced “here” is a story about place, and in Pulitzer and Tony-nominee Taylor Mac’s darkly absurdist play it is about home, in this shockingly good production. The brilliant cast is led by the multi award winning American actress Felicity Huffman.

The prodigal son, Isaac (Steffan Cennydd) returns home from the Afghan war. Home is the place that Isaac couldn’t wait to leave when he joined the marines. Home is the place he sent dead soldiers back to in a box. Home is the place he dreamt about, and home is the place he is desperate to return to. But everything about his home is different.

Not him, not her, but hir is the preferred gender pronoun of his teenage younger sister, Max (Thalía Dudek), who is no longer his sister but his transgender / genderqueer sibling. His father (Simon Startin) is no longer his abusive father, but a dribbling stroke victim in a nightie, with a clown face and neon pink wig. And his mother (Huffman), who calls Isaac simply I, has become a not so batty, woke and merciless woman. Their quickfire chat and actions in this claustrophobic home knows no bounds as they try to look to a future.

Felicity Huffman making her UK stage debut is mesmeric as Paige from the moment the lights go up on their filthy, messy, shabby box of a house, menacingly built over landfill. Making her husband “shut the door” is torturous, made hilarious by the amount of times Huffman can make those three words sound so different. Paige’s deep set and sadistic revenge cruelty on her now pathetic husband is at times monstrous; as Huffman sprays him with a water bottle, like he is a disobedient dog, but still you laugh – to begin with. Huffman’s timing is faultless.

“more than yet another play about a dysfunctional family”

The cast play their roles with absolute conviction as: toxic masculinity, identity, mental illness, PTSD, raging hormones, disability, gender fluidity, emasculation, abuse and drugs, somehow all get their moment without being preachy in this firecracker four hander.

Thalía Dudek as the titular Hir is all testosterone and bravado, as hir convincingly proves that the Mona Lisa is transgender. Dudek also shows the character’s vulnerability and desperation to have hir brother’s traditionally masculine approval, again as the audience laughs – to begin with.

Masterfully directed by Steven Kunis who brings Hir to life, making it more than yet another play about a dysfunctional family. Hir might not quite have the shock value regarding identity, that Taylor Mac intended, when it first opened nearly a decade ago, but it still packs a punch. Set and costume designer Ceci Calf creates an extraordinary theatrical moment at the end of act one as the set closes ranks, as the 1960s pop song Little Boxes plays. And let’s not forget the hard working stage management team, who have a massive change to handle during the interval.

There’s no place like home but in Hir everything and everyone is broken.

CANNED GOODS

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★

“The final scenes are affecting – the clever use of lighting being one of the stars of the show”

CANNED GOODS

Southwark Playhouse Borough

Reviewed on 20th January 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Mark Senior

Recently reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:

Canned Goods

Canned Goods

Canned Goods

HIR at the Park Theatre

★★★★

“Felicity Huffman making her UK stage debut is mesmeric as Paige”

“more than yet another play about a dysfunctional family”

HIR at the Park Theatre

Reviewed on 21st February 2024

by Debbie Rich

Photography by Pamela Raith

Previously reviewed at this venue:

HIR

HIR