KINDERSPORT

by Diana Samuels
presented by Lancaster Footlights
at the Grand Theatre, Lancaster
on Tuesday 12 June 2007.

Reviewed by Keith Walker

“However you love them- it can’t be enough”
(Josefine Rosenbaum)
Leaving home for the first time is a testing experience. Leaving the country of your birth is an awesome occurrence. Leaving both especially as a young child is terrifyingly traumatic.

I was recently talking with some British evacuees from the Second World War. Now in their seventies they still had bitter memories of being, as they saw it at the time, abandoned by their parents even though they now accept it was for their safety.

Both these themes and others are explored in this deeply felt drama which is also about making peace with our parents, our past and with ourselves. It’s a haunting and resonant story, which allows us intimate and moving journeys into the past and present from Nazi-era Germany.

In this occasionally harrowing play, Helga, a Jewish mother (Sandie Perrins) in late thirties Germany dispatches her young daughter Eva (Judy Firth) to safety in Britain. The journey itself is not without its dangers. A Nazi Border Official (Steve Longstaffe) steals Eva’s money but fails to find the gold rings cunningly concealed in her shoes by a Jewish master cobbler.

Eva has a frustrating encounter with an incompetent English Organiser (also Steve - obviously a man of many parts) but eventually is taken in by the kindly “foster mother”, Lil (Jan Crouch).

Kindersport (the transport of children) was not all happy endings. Some of the Jewish children were abused, neglected or exploited; though most were treated well few ever saw their parents again. But it was still a remarkable enterprise at a particularly difficult time.

The play requires sensitive direction to prevent it falling into typical Yiddish sentimentality and is well served by the skilful direction of Ginny Scott assisted by Lynne Thornton. The production is particularly demanding as it moves swiftly in shortish scenes from past to present (even sometimes happening at the same time) and I was especially pleased to note that the lighting design and operation were well executed by Footlights new professional technician, Joe Shevlan. Indeed the backstage crew in every department excelled themselves in achieving a high professional standard (though please fix that door).

When Eva discards her hateful Jewess hanging number plate she also sheds her Germanic identity and also the bond with her mother and father back home. Her father dies in a concentration camp. Her mother survives but only to face the heartbreaking rejection by her daughter when she arrives in England on her way to safety herself in America. “For each (wo) man kills the thing (s) he loves, Yet each (wo) man does not die." (with apologies to Oscar Wilde).

Indeed the daughter, now naturalised British has become Evelyn (Joanna Stephenson) and become a mother herself. But she hides her secret past in the attic from her own child, Faith (Sophie Hughes) rather like Wilde’s Dorian Gray. Eventually the conflict is resolved satisfactorily but both have learned valuable lessons for life, and so have we. There was not a dry eye in the house.

The cast without exception give excellent performances but particularly outstanding is Judy Firth as Eva, who has to play a nervous nine-year-old child progressing by stages to a somewhat ungrateful sixteen-year-old.

This beautifully written play, recently revived professionally and currently on tour, will surely prove to be the highlight of Footlight’s current season.
c. Keith A Walker 2007