A German Life, John Frost for The Gordon Frost Organisation, Playhouse, Canberra Theatre Centre

 

Christopher Hampton's adaptation of a 2016 Austrian Documentary about Brunhilde Pomsel, a one woman narration of a witness to the rise, fall and aftermath of the third Reich, is a gift to the right actress, but a peculiarly difficult one - it requires a performer who can draw you in through sheer, unrelenting ordinariness  - someone apparently just like anybody else, telling a matter of fact story that becomes astonishing in how close a person can be to pure naked horror without apparently recognising it until it is way too late to do anything about it. 

Robyn Nevin has that gift of appearing average while being anything but. On a simple set design resembling a 2000s nursing home room, Brunhilde  takes us into one of the 20th centuries essential horrors, while proclaiming how little she really saw and could have done. Her regrets register as apparently real and heartfelt, but it's impossible not to question her and to be dragged down the rabbit hole of what more she could have, should have done 

Neil Armfield's staging tells this simply, handing the stage to Nevin, accompanied at the side by Catherine Finnis's cellist, with occasional video overlays of Third Reich images to show what's lying behind Brunhilde's simple statements, reminding us what this all came to. It's a virtuoso 80 minutes or so and confronting in where it leaves us, wondering how close we are to falling into the same traps, how willing we are to lie to ourselves that we have no idea what's going on, when we can see very clearly the evils that lie all around us.

PS. I will note that I booked for this one somewhat late, due to both already having other shows booked in to see this week, and due to a somewhat eye-watering initial ticket price. I ended up booking in after a discount became available on Thursday, but I'm still a little wary of that initial ticket price becoming a recurring thing.