Writer: Tom Dugan
Director: Mark Liebert
The life of Simon Wiesenthal has been recreated many times – in books, in feature films, and in characters portrayed by Lawrence Olivier. But in Wiesenthal at Islington’s Kings Head Theatre, he is one man on stage, telling his story of holocaust survival, and Nazi hunting in the name of justice.
The expanded capacity of the newly renovated Kings Head Theatre is focused on a small stage, featuring a cluttered desk and boxes of files. Here is Wiesenthal’s office at the Jewish Documentation Centre, where Wiesenthal (Christopher C Gibbs) carries out his life’s work of catching 1,100 former Nazis and perpetrators of the holocaust, including implementer of the ‘Final Solution’, Adolf Eichmann, Franz Murer, “The Butcher of Wilno,” and Erich Rajakowitsch, in charge of the “death transports” in Holland.
‘Great things happen at messy desks’ – the humble Wiesenthal acknowledges much of his work is spent on the phone, the less glamorous side of analysing data and records. Yet the enormity of this tale being told on an intimate, modestly dressed stage is the perfect setting to emphasise that it is the act of ordinary men and women that perpetrated the holocaust, and in the same way, it was this ‘ordinary’ man that sought justice.
‘I have been likened to a Jewish James Bond’ – the humour in Tom Dugan’s text that punctuates this production makes the horrific tale all the more powerful. The dialogue achieves the chilling effect of making unthinkable horrors feel so vivid, especially as the scale of the crimes is so easy to pass over: ‘One hundred dead is a tragedy. One million deaths are a statistic,’ Wiesenthal reminds us.
Sole performer Christopher C Gibbs carries this humour and balances it beautifully with profoundly moving moments. Recounting the horrors of the holocaust is an easy way to move an audience, but even Gibbs’ simple gesture toward a potted sunflower on stage holds the audience in rapt attention.
Mark Liebert’s direction sets the perfect pace for this intricate tale; a standout moment comes when Wiesenthal tells his own experience of liberation from a concentration camp, on the brink of death. It’s simply said, directly to the audience, but we are all transported to that fateful moment. At times elements of plot slip in the complexity of the story, and some voice-overs in the sound design feel slightly clunky. The production is at its most powerful when it focuses in on Wiesenthal’s account rather than over-dramatizes. The audience bears witness to Wiesenthal’s charting his successes and failures on the last day on the ‘job’, just as he bears witness to the injustices faced by millions during WWII by bringing those responsible to court.
It’s a powerful tribute to a hugely significant life, but more so it’s an important reminder for today. The importance of remembering those we have lost, to speak about genocide as it is happening, and learn from our mistakes. It is a message important to today: mankind is capable of terrible things, but relentlessly, the humanity within us remains.
Runs until 15 September 2024
