Games by Henry Naylor
Directed by Louise Skaaning. Gilded Balloon and Redbeard Theatre in association with Holden Street Theatres. The Arch Holden Street Theatres. Adelaide Fringe. February 12 – March 16.2019.
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
Sophie Shad and Tessie Orange-Turner in Games
Three blood-red banners hung from
the black walls of the stage of the hot and steamy unventilated The Arch at the
Holden Street Theatres. A pervading sense of discomfort spread through the
converted church. Uncomfortable as it may have been, the discomfort seemed appropriate
as the packed audience sweltered during Henry Naylor’s latest triumph. Set
against the threatening rise of German fascism, Games recalls the fortunes and
struggles of two elite athletes of the Weimar period,champion Olympic fencer,
Helene Mayer and Track and Field athlete Gretel Bergman.
As Helene Mayer, blonde Sophie
Shad in white fencing uniform appears
the ideal image of the Aryan German maiden. The irony is that Mayer’s father
was Jewish and her mother Aryan, and she consequently suffered the anti-semitic
judgement of her time, in spite of the matriarchal lineage of Jewish heritage. Gretel Bergman was Jewish and an elite high
jumper at the time of the Nazi’s ominous rise to power. Director, Louise Skaaning
has cast dynamic coloured British actress, Tessie Orange-Turner as Bergman,
lending the role a powerful commentary on discrimination. We are instantly
confronted with racial, political, and gender prejudice and injustice Shad and Orange-Turner are outstanding as
Mayer and Bergmann. Shad’s Mayer is politically naïve, disclaiming her Jewish
legacy, discounting the influence of politics in sport until she is finally
compelled to acknowledge the horrific consequences of Hitler’s ascension and her
labelling as a Jew.. The younger
Bergmann, forcefully played with gritty determination by Orange –Turner, pleads
for solidarity and the strength and conviction to stand up to the forces of
discrimination. It costs her a place in the ’36 Berlin Olympics. Mayer competes
and it costs her the Gold. Each is the victim of her race, her religion and the
dangerous will of the State.
In a series of pointedly sharp
monologues, interspersed with occasional interaction with each other and
imaginary characters, briefly created by Shad and Orange-Turner with deft skill
and clarity., each performer outlines the perilous trajectory of their careers
at a time when their homeland stood on the precipice of madness, which
eventually consumed the world.
Naylor’s play is no cloistered
commentary on our time. Hitler’s quoted claim to drain the swamp of Weimar and make Germany great again resonates with
chilling contemporary force. Discrimination on the grounds of race, religion, gender
and political persuasion is the bedrock of Naylor’s often poetic and
inescapably cautionary text. Skaaning’s insightful interpretation and simple
minimalist staging with Shad’s and Orange-Turner’s carefully researched
characterizations compel contemplation on the dangers that confront today’s
world. Naylor, like Bergmann, warns that we can not hide behind a mask of mesh
and simply parry , thrust and riposte against the vacant air.
Games is a timely call for action, performed with energetic conviction
, shining a light history’s warning that
those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it.
