East of Berlin review: A gripping look at the generational effects of evil

East of Berlin was a euphemism for the Nazi deportation of Jews to death camps during the second World War. Hannah Moscovitch’s play uses the genocide as an opportunity to explore the idea of legacy and the generational effects of evil, but it is also specific in its examination of the civic complicity that enabled crimes of such magnitude to be condoned by the masses.

Rudi (Colin Campbell) is the son of a former SS doctor, who performed scientific experiments upon Jewish inmates at Auschwitz. Rudi grew up in a German colony in Paraguay, ignorant of his father’s crimes until a worldly schoolmate Herman (the louche Liam Heslin, clad in lemon) enlightens him to the nature of their respective parents’ histories. Rudi is repulsed and decides to leave his family and return to Berlin. He meets a young Jewish woman, Sarah (the earnest Erin Flanagan), while researching his father’s crimes and he sees in her an opportunity to redeem his family’s dark history.

Moscovitch creates a complex psychological portrait in the character of Rudi. He cannot forgive his father for his past, yet he cannot forget how good a childhood he had. He refuses his parents' financial support, yet lives off monies provided by the Nazi network Odessa. He seeks redemption in a relationship with a Jew, yet he does not reveal the full extent of his history. Colin Campbell cuts Rudi’s anger with a sardonic smile, imploring the audience to help decide his future and his father’s fate. It is a performance as convincing as Rudi’s own and the emotional weight of the dramatic finale, at once inevitable and shocking, works only because of his commitment.

Lee Wilson’s direction places the audience inches away from the explosive emotional situation, on a traverse set designed by Ger Clancy which calls to mind the Auschwitz camps. Zia Holly’s lighting is at times forensic, throwing an unyielding eye upon the past. At other times, it bends towards expressionistic, illuminating Rudi’s psychological stress. At such close quarters, however, the use of plastic props is fatally distracting, particularly in the closing moments.

East of Berlin is a gripping play and this is a fine production from emerging company Brinkmanship Theatre.