Theatre review: Good

John Halder (David Tennant) is a University literature professor and author of a few well-received novels, whose generally happy life does bring him a few causes for stress: His elderly mother has lost her eyesight and is struggling to cope on her own; his best friend, the Jewish psychotherapist Maurice (Elliot Levey) is as neurotic as any of his patients and insists on trying to analyse John whenever they meet; and he's seriously considering leaving his wife Helen (Sharon Small) for one of his students. At least his professional life is going well, as he's a rising star of the Nazi party. Dominic Cooke's production of CP Taylor's Good finally makes it to a West End stage on the third attempt*, and like any play chosen for its uncomfortable topicality the precise moments that chime with recent events may have changed slightly in two years, but the overall relevance remains.

John sees himself as a good man, and certainly not as a believer in Hitler's ideology, who only joins the Nazi Party because it's easiest for his family's comfort. He doesn't resist much when asked to join the SS though.

Although the regime's crimes against Jewish people are the play's main focus, early on there's also acknowledgement of their genocide of the physically and mentally disabled: One of John's novels touched on euthanasia, and his superiors think he can make a useful contribution to their plans; soon he's suggesting ways to make death chambers look like bathrooms and make sure the families aren't suspicious when their disabled loved ones die of "natural causes" while at a treatment centre.

The obvious phrase that comes to mind is the banality of evil, and Tennant does embrace this side of the story - there's a matter-of-factness to his treatment of both the people closest to him and the more abstract concept of the Jews he's helping to "deal with" that's sociopathic. In that sense the title's suggestion that this is a play about a good man insidiously drawn into evil is misleading - Tennant plays John with a dangerous blankness and disregard for anything beyond his own and his family's happiness. It's a chilling central performance so it's left to Levey to provide the heart as the quietly despairing Maurice, and Small to provide the fireworks as a variety of characters.

From a modern perspective I feel like what's potent about the play is its commentary on how hate speech can easily be dismissed if we don't look a couple of steps ahead. Halder easily dismisses Hitler's anti-Jewish rhetoric as vote-grabbing populism that can't practically translate into policy - the Holocaust is an unthinkable development in 1933, but by the time he's led book-burnings (while keeping his own copies of the banned texts) and participated in Kristallnacht (managing to logically justify to himself that it's being done for the Jews' own good,) any moral block to his taking a senior role at Auschwitz is long gone. Meanwhile Maurice does see several steps ahead, and spends most of the play asking his influential friend to help him and his family escape Germany, only to have his concerns dismissed. Yet by the end, with 20/20 hindsight, John happily agrees with his colleagues that any Jews who didn't leave Germany years earlier deserve what's coming to them.

Cooke's production takes place in a small, prison-like concrete space, which Vicki Mortimer's design equips with a couple of hatches that reveal the true darkness behind, while leaving space for a final coup de théâtre. The play takes a little while to get into - Tennant jumps between narrating the story to the audience and interacting with the many characters Small and Levey play, so the style takes a little getting used to. In addition by its nature the play is low-key, as John tells the story of his day-to-day life, while the global atrocity he's becoming part of is almost a background detail he throws in. This does all of course contribute to the growing dread and the creepingly effective darkness at the heart of the play.

Good by CP Taylor is booking until the 24th of December at the Harold Pinter Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Johan Persson.

*on a lighter note, the delay also means that this is the second time I've seen the current Doctor on stage