|
|
 |
| |
An artist’s fateful road to Auschwitz
LOTTE'S JOURNEY
New End Theatre
THE world premiere of Lotte’s Journey, by Candida Cave, chronicles the life of the Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon, who died at just 26.
The year is 1943 and Lotte (Selina Chilton) is being transported to Auschwitz with her husband, Alexander Nagler (Max Digby). They were captured in Nice and taken to Drancy, a prison camp just outside Paris, and then placed on transport to their eventual horrific destination.
While I feel uneasy about dramas concerning the
Holocaust – as I did with plays depicting The Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1990s, feeling they can appear exploitative – this was not the case with Candida Cave’s play.
Using flashbacks, it shows Charlotte’s personal journey through her work as an artist, which coincided with the Nazis coming to power in 1933.
Other aspects of Lotte’s life are shown: she discovers her grandmother with a noose around her neck in the bathroom, only to be told by her grandfather that there have been other suicides in the family. Her relationship with Alfred Wolfson (Dominic Power), her stepmother’s voice teacher, is also explored.
He encourages her to paint and Charlotte renamed her true life characters in the paintings: Wolfson, to whom she was passionately attached, became Amadeus.
The complex character of Lotte
is portrayed with skill and charm by Selina Chilton; other parts are doubled up by the actors, which can become problematic, but was achieved here with aplomb.
Dominic Power is outstanding as both Amadeus and the French journalist Du Pont, who shows more than just an interest in Lotte on their horrendous train journey.
The depiction of the Nazi can easily become caricature, but Ben Elliot avoids this trap and makes Sattler, the guard, believable and, therefore, more frightening.
Lotte Collette’s set design captures the bone-rattler of a railway carriage very effectively and the open space where the company play their various roles in less traumatic situations is well-lit. The train carriage may be seen as a metaphor for life’s inevitable journey to death, or the limbo state of being before the eventual choice that our main protagonist has to make.
Charlotte dedicated her work to the American Ottilie Moore (Elizabeth Elvin) who helped and housed Lotte and her grandparents in France before the war.
The play is directed by Ninon Jerome with pace and sensitivity.
Until November 25
0870 033 2733 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
