UK Theatre Network

JUDENFREI           NEW END THEATRE

JUDENFRE a new play by Kate Glover, based on the restrictions imposed on practicing Jewish lawyers during the Nazi regime, provides a passable but unremarkable night of theatre at Hampstead’s New End theatre.

Judenfrei explores the lives of Hanna Lowenfeld and Philipp Meier, two promising young Jewish lawyers in 1930s Berlin, who become victims of Hitler’s 1933 act that bars Jews from practicing law.  Hanna is an outspoken legal human rights activist who has already been barred from her profession by the Nazis, who refuses to accept any immediate offers to escape to Cuba unless visas can be found for her whole family.  Phillip however if forced to take immediate action and flee Berlin after he receives a threatening telephone call from an unknown source

Glover’s drama based on the real life story of Dr Wilhelm Dickmann (1900-1987), a German lawyer of Jewish origin and Dr Elizabeth Kohn (1902-1941), a German lawyer and practising Jew, was inspired when she saw the 2009  exhibition of Lawyers Without Rights  produced by the Temple Church, the Jewish Museum London and the German Federal Bar. Glover has her own theatre company Historia, which aims at putting on plays that have their source or inspiration in history.
Judenfrei, is a well intentioned piece that fails to offer any original dramatic vision on this much covered period of German history. The script is hindered by excessive exposition and clichéd dialogue, and is not helped by Tom Scott’s ponderous direction. There are however good central performances by Anthony Wolfe and Noa Bodner as the Lawyers, and Victoria Corlass is particularly convincing as Margarete Meier.

Judenfrei: Love and Death in Hitler’s Germany plays until 30^th January. Ticket sales 0870 033 2733
http://www.newendtheatre.co.uk