The production is spare and pacy, with brief blackouts between scenes and, beyond a stylised Seder table, strikingly minimal sets courtesy of Ellie Wintour. When characters put on their eerie VR visors, which consume the whole face, the Holocaust scenes they are engulfed in are not enacted, but powerfully evoked through chilling sounds (Sarah Spencer) and lighting (Jonathan Chen).
According to the director’s programme note, Memoriam is “just the first play” in a broader plan to “share with you an exciting new Jewish theatre – new Jewish voices, new Jewish stories, made by Jews and non-Jews, working together to make great art”. For anyone interested in taut Jewish family dramas or how to memorialise the Holocaust, it makes for a very auspicious start.
By Matthew Reisz
Photos by Charlie Flint Photography
Memoriam runs until Saturday 21 November. 7pm, 2.30pm (Tue & Sat only). From £28, from £22.50 concs. Southwark Playhouse Borough, SE1 6BD. southwarkplayhouse.co.uk
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