Good (Modern Plays): A Tragedy

Product Information

Archived copy". uc-ipc.com. Archived from the original on 20 August 2008 . Retrieved 17 January 2022. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title ( link) best plays of the Century". National Theatre. Archived from the original on 10 May 2012 . Retrieved 11 May 2012. Plaque Book Burning - Frankfurt am Main - TracesOfWar.com". en.tracesofwar.com . Retrieved 29 June 2018.

It’s depressingly easy to see why Cooke would want to revive Good now - the number of antisemitic incidents reported in the UK reached an all-time high in 2021, undoubtedly fuelled by the rise of far-right internet groups luring in supporters through memes and so-called edgy humour. Killing Jewish people is obviously a bad thing, Halder says to us in the aftermath of the Night of Broken Glass. But Taylor doesn’t make enough of these asides for us to have any real connection with Halder. We’re given nothing to latch on to. Once again-- one of the most moving pieces of theater I've ever seen produced. The reading of it, too, while a little disjointed, is equally impactful. It speaks the loudest, of course, in its ellipses and its silence. This omission is juxtaposed against a soaring and continuous soundscape of jazz and big band. A true treat for the eyes, ears, and mind. Well worth trying to acquire the David Tennant version if you can (from director Dominic Cooke): a masterpiece in style and execution.

Edith Stein - a victim of the Holocaust who was murdered at Auschwitz, fellow protégée with Heidegger of the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl By its conclusion, Halder has left his wife for a student and is standing in an SS uniform at the gates of Auschwitz, the camp that, following Hitler's interest in his novel, he has helped to create. The "musical comedy" stops here, as the imaginary musicians who have been haunting Halder's existence (excellent live music led by Tim van Eyken) are replaced by an actual orchestra of camp inmates performing a Schubert march. For this supposedly "good" man, on the threshold of one of the abominations of the 20th century, the most significant aspect of the situation is that the music is no longer a facet of his imagination: "The band was real." Good' is set in Germany between 1933 and 1942. Primarily it is a play about the causes rather than the consequences of Nazism. It explores how a "Good" man gets caught up in the intricate web of personal and social reasons why the average person might be seduced in to what we now see as abhorrent. The play this emerges as a fiction with imaginary characters set against social history. The author, C P Taylor thus rejects the view that the Nazi atrocities are explained as a result of the simple conspiracy of criminals and psychopaths. Further the lesson of Nazism and the play are not just about the revulsion of six million dead but a warning about popular movements that lead to holocausts. In remembering these lessons we should this reflect on today's support given to Apartheid in South Africa, our fears of "enemies within" and our participation in the final final solution - a nuclear holocaust.

As the world faces its Second World War, Halder finds himself pulled into a movement with unthinkable consequences. In that context, it’s easy to see why he’s so doggedly persisted with Dominic Cooke’s revival of CP Taylor’s 1981 play ‘Good’, which has twice been postponed by the pandemic. Halder dons an SS uniform and visits a concentration camp where he is confronted by the reality that his choices and actions helped put into motion.

About the contributors

The first half is like an extended therapy session, with scenes threaded together by Halder narrating his feelings to his Jewish friend Maurice (Elliot Levey, pictured below right, wonderfully full of gesture and verve). Maurice is a psychoanalyst, and he and Halder are endlessly diagnosing themselves. At this early stage, Halder’s worst crime is talking about himself too much. Tennant’s performance is genius, affable and slightly bumbling, his natural Scottish accent promoting the air of incongruous sincerity around Halder.