Good review: ‘fascinating psychological theatre’ starring David Tennant
This quietly terrifying play offers a ‘surprising and perceptive psychological slant’ on the Nazis’ rise
“Few actors can project charismatic affability better than David Tennant,” said Dominic Cavendish in The Daily Telegraph. And fewer still have his ability to switch off the charm in an instant and “go dead behind the eyes”, as we discovered when he played the serial killer Dennis Nielsen in ITV’s Des.
In Good, set in pre-war Germany, Tennant plays another “seemingly ordinary man” – a liberal-minded literature professor, John Halder, who gradually becomes part of the Nazi “killing machine”, washes his hands of his Jewish best friend, and ends up arguing for the Final Solution.
First performed in 1981, C.P. Taylor’s quietly terrifying play offers a “surprising and perceptive psychological slant” on the Nazis’ rise. Halder is not “spurred by rousing speeches” and nationalist passion – but rather by bourgeois insularity, “self-interest and self-absorption”. And Tennant’s performance is “hypnotic”.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
This is “fascinating psychological theatre with the feel of a fever dream”, amplified in Dominic Cooke’s production by bold, non-naturalistic staging, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. Vicki Mortimer’s set is “grey and prison-like”; scenes change abruptly. The strangeness of all this is explained by a reveal at the end, but “the payoff isn’t quite surprising enough”. Still, there is “enough intrigue, intellect and fine acting to keep us rapt”, and Tennant is “spellbinding in his ordinariness, not hiding Halder’s venality yet ensuring he remains human”.
Tennant’s is a “chilling performance rather than a moving one”, said Sarah Crompton on What’s on Stage. It falls to Elliott Levey, as Maurice, Halder’s best friend, to locate the play’s emotion, and he brilliantly conveys both Maurice’s humour and rising panic.
Sharon Small is equally persuasive, said Dominic Maxwell in The Times: she has to switch between parts – Halder’s wives, his mother, a Nazi soldier – and does so in a way that is “clear, unfussy, instant”. Don’t expect fireworks from this excellent revival. “What you get is something stranger, more insidious, and I suspect much more memorable.”
Harold Pinter Theatre, London SW1
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
The ‘menopause gold rush’Under the Radar Women vulnerable to misinformation and marketing of ‘unregulated’ products
-
Voting Rights Act: SCOTUS’s pivotal decisionFeature A Supreme Court ruling against the Voting Rights Act could allow Republicans to redraw districts and solidify control of the House
-
No Kings rally: What did it achieve?Feature The latest ‘No Kings’ march has become the largest protest in U.S. history
-
Roasted squash and apple soup recipeThe Week Recommends Autumnal soup is full of warming and hearty flavours
-
6 well-crafted log homesFeature Featuring a floor-to-ceiling rock fireplace in Montana and a Tulikivi stove in New York
-
Film reviews: A House of Dynamite, After the Hunt, and It Was Just an AccidentFeature A nuclear missile bears down on a U.S. city, a sexual misconduct allegation rocks an elite university campus, and a victim of government terror pursues vengeance
-
Book reviews: ‘Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife’ and ‘Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong With Baseball and How to Fix It’Feature Gertrude Stein’s untold story and Jane Leavy’s playbook on how to save baseball
-
Rachel Ruysch: Nature Into ArtFeature Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, through Dec. 7
-
Music reviews: Olivia Dean, Madi Diaz, and Hannah FrancesFeature “The Art of Loving,” “Fatal Optimist,” and “Nested in Tangles”
-
Gilbert King’s 6 favorite books about the search for justiceFeature The journalist recommends works by Bryan Stevenson, David Grann, and more
-
Ready for the apocalypseFeature As anxiety rises about the state of the world, the ranks of preppers are growing—and changing.