Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Helen Anderson, Lisa Bird, Eva Bell, Andrew Bone, Ed Brody, Phil Cheadle, Kit Lessner, Marianne Oldham, Robert Styles, Eleanor Thorn, Rosie Wyatt, Javez Cheeseman, Colby Mulgrew.
Some pieces of literature are perhaps arguably not intended to be envisigned in anything other than cinema’s light, some perhaps are so sensitive that to try and show that singular emotion on the stage is to invite crass remarks and tactlessness in return.
The realities of war, of the disgust felt for a generation, of certain people in history that allowed, that actively took part in the horrors of the so called Final Solution are felt descending from the stage in Angus Jackson’s adaptation of John Boyne’s The Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas and the complexity of bringing this to the Playhouse Theatre audience were obviously relished in such a production.
The difficulty in staging such a play, a production that relies heavily on two children carrying the narrative along, emotionally as well as physically, is one that could get lost in the mire of pity and overwhelming compassion for the young actors, rather than the two characters they are playing. For Javez Cheeseman and Colby Mulgrew their performances as the Commandant’s son Bruno and the small Jewish boy Shmuel were of the highest quality possible; two very demanding parts for such an age to traverse but ones that were scaled with determination and with utter conviction.
The use of the barbed wire fence that initially separated the two boys was one that was both powerful and shocking, an image that has been used with potency since the likes of Belsen and Auschwitz were liberated and the shocking scenes of Humanity’s desire to implode, to disgrace itself in such fashion filled thousands of books, films and minds and yet with just a simple turn of a stage flooring took on greater resonance. To play this scene out in such a fashion was to amplify the question loudly, just exactly who is the prisoner, the one behind the wire, or the one whose nation has placed them in there?
The complexity of the play, of revolving it around two young boys for whom the audience’s natural sympathies would lay is to be seen arguably in how the rest of the cast, perhaps with the exception of Phil Cheadle as Bruno’s father, were to be seen. The feeling of allowing the actors not to dominate the thought of the crowd, resulted in strong actors such as Helen Anderson and Rosie Wyatt not fulfilling their true potential in their roles.
The Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas is a classic book, one perhaps that goes into much greater detail than a stage play can ever truly allow itself to fall into. History is never truly learned and such is the way of the world, that the final question posed, one that is always on the lips, “This cannot happen again?”, is one that scarily is only ever a heartbeat away of we let it.
The Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas is a play that overcomes great adversity in producing a piece so embroiled in history, in the devastation and brutality that is allowed to breed when common sense, decency and compassion goes out of the window.
Ian D. Hall