Canned Goods by Erik Kahn, Southwark Playhouse, the Large 77 Newington Causeway, London SE1 until 08 February 2025, 3☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

Photo Credit: Mark Senior.

Canned Goods by Erik Kahn, Southwark Playhouse, the Large 77 Newington Causeway, London SE1 until 08 February 2025,

3☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

“A powerful play for today.”

What with Musk giving Nazi salutes at the Trump installation celebrations, not to mention what the man himself was getting up to this interesting, but very uneven play about how Hitler set about justifying invading Poland in September 1939 has become far more topical than it would otherwise have been. On a cleverly constructed set three men find themselves arrested by the Gestapo – one is a farmer, who is in a cell alone, the other two are inmates brought from Dachau, a Jewish academic and a petty thief. They have no idea why they are there and the SS officer in charge enjoys taunting them. It did happen. Major Alfred Naujocks, an icily controlled performance by Dan Parr, was sent by Himmler to set up an attack by Poles on a German radio station which would allow the excuse to invade. It seems he also survived as after the war there were just too any small fry to punish – the parallel with what Trump has done with the pardons he has issued to those who stormed the Capitol building is there to see. The men are well treated, but also tormented by their captor and bullied by the guard designated to look after them. The realisation that they are there to be killed slowly dawns. Theirs not to reason. Director Charlotte Cohn keeps the action moving and uses the clever set, a minimal collection of platforms and a chair, to considerable effect. Tom Wells, who plays the farmer Honiok, there because he lives alone and nobody will miss him, creates a perfectly decent man who has no interest in what Hitler is doing – your average voter really – effectively and from time to time he also delivers Hitler's rants which are terrifying to listen to although impossible to understand. Charlie Archer as Burnbaum, the philosophical Jew, who is under no illusions as to what lies ahead – it has happened before to his race – and Rowan Polonski as Kruger, the German petty thief who thinks the world owes him something are equally impressive. The problem is that the excuse for invading Poland is lost in the past so that it takes ages for the play to establish just what it is about keeping the audience is kept in a state of confusion for too long. The men's ignorance matters, but the watcher needs to know whyt they are there earlier to make that all the more tragic and also that it is a warning of things that could come which nobody expects. But all that said it is a well performed and staged powerful play for today – but let us hope not for tomorrow.

Cast

Dan Parr – Major Naujocks

Charlie Archer – Birnbau

Tom Wells – Honiok

Rowan Polanski – Kruger

Joe Mallalieu – Guatd/Heydrich/Muller

Danny Mellor – Swing

Creatives

Director – Charlotte Cohn

Set Designer – Mo a Camille

Lighting Designer – Ryan Joseph Stafford

Sound Designer – Anna Short

Costume Supervisor – Hazel McIntosh