This play, where actors voice the views of 12 Jewish interviewees, is well-intentioned but barely takes shape as a drama
Last autumn, the Royal Court – always proudly and occasionally exhaustingly in the vanguard of liberal-thinking theatre – found itself caught up in allegations of anti-Semitism. Myriad members of the Jewish community took exception to the name of a character in Al Smith’s play,, arguing that “Hershel Fink”, when applied to a Silicon Valley billionaire not specified in the script as Jewish, smacked of unconscious bias and lazy stereotyping.
Hand-wringing and a name-change followed and now, here on the main stage, comes the Court’s very public expiation for past sins. Yet, however well-meaning thisThe idea propelling the work came from actress and campaigner, who was also one of the 12 Jewish people interviewed by the fine journalist Jonathan Freedland. It is their verbatim testimony from these interviews that we hear, after a none-too-subtle opening skit featuring Hershel Fink as a comedy biblical figure.
Freedland positions one of his central arguments at the start: “Why do so many parts of the cultural liberal left succumb to anti-Semitism?” As urgent as this question is, 100 minutes of weak theatre are not the way to go about answering it.Some of Freedland’s interviewees are well-known – Oberman, present and former Labour MPs Margaret Hodge and Luciana Berger, Booker Prize-winning novelist Howard Jacobson.
There’s also the frequent conflation of all Jewish people with the doings of the state of Israel. Little here we haven’t heard or read before – indeed it’s tough to work out the intended audience for
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