E-mail to a friend Find tickets

Hannah & Martin

Published Monday 2 June 2008 at 10:20 by Paul Vale

The trial of Baldur Von Schirach at Nuremberg prompts the philosopher Hannah Arendt to return to her country and assist with the resettlement of the Jewish community. Her real motive however, is to meet her ex-tutor and lover Martin Heidegger, a philosopher of worldwide repute whose reputation has been destroyed by his association with the Nazi party.

Kate Fodor’s neatly structured play is the perfect marriage of philosophical argument and dramatic tension. The ideals of philosophy and didactic argument that might normally pad out a drama here take centre stage and add a rippling tension when held up against the brutality of the Third Reich and the irrationality of love.

As Arendt, Vivienne Rowdon is at the top of her game in an extremely difficult and emotional role. Rowdon manages to find the flesh and blood behind a philosopher’s elaborate theory and here she is matched perfectly by Greg Patmore’s Heidegger. Neither resort to melodrama or any obvious artifice and during the second act in particular, the sparks fly between these two actors. They are ably supported by a strong cast, including Stacy Thunes as Heidegger’s complex wife, Sarah Savage as Arendt’s pupil and conscience, Alice, and a particularly warm performance from Sarah Simpkins as Gertrude Jaspers.

This is a thoroughly absorbing piece marred only slightly by somewhat stodgy direction from Pat Garrett and a set that looks like an afterthought, ill-fitting the glorious new Courtyard performance space in Hoxton.

E-mail to a friend Find tickets