The difficulty reviewing this powerful new play by Meredydd Barker is that relating anything about the plot inevitably reveals what the audience should not know. Fair to say it concerns identity, betrayal, complex relationships and how disturbingly the past can affect the present. The past is the final chaotic days of the Third Reich - the present, an isolated Welsh farm 50 years later.
The Simon Harris staging is taut, intensely dramatic, violence contrasting with moments of genuine tenderness. However, the action takes too long supplying clues as to its significance, thus making it not easy to care about the characters and their undoubted problems.
Mike Hayward gives a memorable portrayal as the one-timer baker enmeshed in a web of lies, haunted by the past. His scenes with his grand-daughter (so sensitively played by Eiry Hughes) being particularly telling. A strong performance too from Philip Ralph as Paul, supported by Simon Nehan and Daniel Hawksford as members of the SS, Richard Elis as an Italian smuggler and Dean Rehman as a Russian soldier. The sparse setting by Sean Crowley has the audience seated on both sides of the long narrow split-level acting area, effectively lit by Elanor Higgins.
This is the final production in Sgript Cymru’s six years of presenting new works by Wales-based writers, a total of 20 productions in English and Welsh. Now the company is merging with the Sherman Theatre to tour new works on a national and international level.
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