Tramway

29 th September 2006

A review for EXTRA! EXTRA! by A.E. Watterson

My Dark Sky tells the true story of the White Rose Resistance, a group of radical young students who secretly printed and distributed Anti-Nazi propaganda and painted graffiti on the smouldering remains of Munich’s buildings during the Second World War. Their protests were undertaken at a great personal risk and the majority of the White Rose members paid for their political ideas with their lives.

The play deals with the few days preceding the arrests of Sophie and Hans Scholl for distributing leaflets at Munich University. The other members, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf, Wilhelm Geyer, and Christoph Probst and Kurt Huber, who do not appear in the play, were soon arrested, and all but Geyer, who ‘escaped’ with a long prison sentence, were executed.

So goes the story. But is it any good, put here on the Tramway stage by Reeling and Writhing for the very first time?

Well, there are two sides of the house. For the Ayes: My Dark Sky is visually excellent, with often very simple touches illuminating the play. For example, the graffiti was ‘painted’ in green light and images of the Nazi youth were projected over Hans Scholl as he slept after a hard night’s graffiti-ing. The final scene, where the actors threw copies of the final White Rose Resistance leaflet, just as Sophie and Hans did before their arrests, was excellent. For the Nos: All power came from the story itself, which exists already, out-with the play in history, rather than from this telling of it. Tim Nunn, the playwright, has worked all his life as an artist and photographer, and it shows in this production. Where the visual aspect of the play is fluidly excellent, with a balanced, economical set, the script suffers from banal and generic writing. It is unfortunate, as this is a story that offers so much potential that is ultimately unrealised in My Dark Sky. I feel a sense of loss when I think of what might have been done with the dialogue, when compared to the real thing.

All of that said this is not a bad play; rather one in its infancy, which could, with a radical rewrite be very, very good indeed. The acting is so-so, hard to love or hate. Nicola Jo Cully (Sophie) and Robert Montgomery (Alexander), in particular, erred on the wrong side of enthusiastic and over-acted, but, altogether, the performances were energetic and committed. The problems with the acting lay mainly with the script, which presented an Alexander and Sophie that were overly romantic and generic. Willi, Hans and Wilhelm were more balanced, but none betrayed the bleak heart of the story.

The theatre itself, one of the smaller performance spaces in Glasgow’s Tramway theatre, a disused tram depot on the Southside, provided an excellent, foreboding backdrop for the play. Darkness hung in and around the high, brick arches, framing the play in black. It was around these edges that I thought the power of the play was greatest, not in the script, nor the performances, but in the implications of this fascinating, tragic story.