Good (2020)
by C P Taylor
Performances: Tue 3rd – Sat 7th March 2020, Old Fire Station
Contents
Introduction
What makes a good man? It's a question John Halder asks himself - it is something he believes himself to be. But this is 1930s Germany and the choices a person makes may be the difference between good and profound evil. A brilliant fable on morality in a turbulent time.
Cast
- John Halder - Nick Howard
- Maurice - Alex Watts
- Nurse / Elisabeth - Katie Floyd
- Mother - Lily Ann Green
- Clerk / Dispatch Rider - Joe Scholes
- Helen - Rebecca Law
- Bouller / Officer / Hoss - Richard Lace
- Anne - Claudia Lace
- Freddie / Crooner - Mitchell Labiak
- Crooner / Bok / Patient - Rob Wallis
- Hitler / Patient - David Carr
- Doctor / Crooner / Eichmann - Jack King
Crew
- Assistant Director - Fiona Daffern
- Stage Manager - Kay George
- Assistant Stage Manager - Melanie Boyce
- Lighting Designer - Bryon Fear
- Sound Designer - Tom Watts
- Operators - Fiona Daffern & Lee Ridgeway
- Costume - SLT Wardrobe, Fiona Daffern, Flame Torbay Costume Hire
- Set - Chaz Doyle, Hans Mudlamootoo, Sean Thomas, Mark Ireson
- Rigging - Sean Thomas, Mark Ireson
- Photography - Phil Gammon
- Programme - Bryon Fear
Reviews
Carole Coyne
SLT is amazing for producing such a variety of plays and this weeks offering of Good by C P Taylor is very different from anything else in this season. it is a strong play about how easily people can be seduced away from their natural moral inclinations by the pull of political and emotional strings. Nick Howard‘s delivery of the lead role is spot on and all the minor characters support him flawlessly. There is remarkably good singing too from characters who were chosen for their acting potential. This story should be told to each generation so we never forget the horrors that happened under the Nazis.
Martin Copland-Gray
Congrats to Lisa Thomas & her team on Good. A difficult subject to tackle but sensitively done by one of my favourite SLT directors. #BEAD
Jess Osorio
Congratulations on some interesting and strong performances in Good. Not an easy play to watch or be in but watching was an interesting and entertaining experience. Well staged and costumed even if unsettling at times. Carries relevancy today.. Do go along and see it even if you think might not be immediately your choice of play. Moments where I laughed even though it was not always comfortable. Thought provoking, deserves full houses. Thought all the actors were excellent, and stretched dramatically by this play. Loved the music, and projections, both of which enhanced the experience.
Audrey Lindsay
Congratulations to everyone involved with Good. It's an absorbing unsettling play with troubling modern resonances, and Lisa Thomas has directed it with meticulous care. The cast is uniformly excellent from Nick Howard's terrifying normal and hapless Halder (and I felt slightly faint contemplating his line-learning feat....) to Joe Scholes' perfectly delivered dispatch rider. And every performance in between - outstanding work and so much to appreciate from LilyAnn Green Coleman, Alex Watts, Bex Law, Mitchell Labiak, Robert Wallis - no, I have to stop, I am just listing ALL the cast members!! Plus this is one of the best examples I have ever seen of sustained onstage discipline by the entire cast. I urge you to book if you haven't done so already.
Anna Rubincam
Congratulations to the cast and crew of Good. A complex play that asks a lot of difficult questions and answers some of them. Some really strong performances, stellar background acting, amazing (and disturbing) costumes, and lots of interesting discussion in the bar afterwards. Don’t miss this!
Bryon Fear
Good ... is an interesting piece of theatre that sparked a lot of debate in the bar last night. An impressive performance and Herculean line count from Nick Howard who really grounds the play with a character that sparks the moral debate at the heart of the piece. The staging of the play is really smart, Lisa Thomas has made some very savvy decisions that pay off. Also, the costumes are glorious in their detail some of the best I have seen in an SLT, production. As Anna Rubincam mentioned in her review the background characters (who never leave the stage) are beautifully observed and delivered with conviction but special mentions for Bex Law, who makes a woefully under-written character believable, and Mitchell Labiak who owns the stage every time he steps foot on it, delivering one of the play’s most interesting characters.
Chaz Doyle
Book your tickets for Good! An interesting play that pitches a normal man, with normal problems in a situation where we all believe we would make the right, the "Good" choice... Nick Howard does a wonderful job as Halder, a not particularly exceptional man, who finds himself singled out and sought after by the Party to make the objective, yet humane argument. Great performances all round, but with special mentions to Bex, Mitchell and LilyAnn. Even having studied WW2, I found myself genuinely reconsidering the propaganda and tactics used by the Nazi party to acheive their aims. Chilling in retrospect.
Hayley Thomas
So glad I saw Good last night! Another excellent SLT ensemble production! Difficult subject matter was handled very well and the overall effect was thought provoking and in the present climate not a little disturbing. Really liked the staging, props and costumes which evoke exactly the right atmosphere. The performances were all very good even when they were not in the spotlight but watching from the 'chorus'. Congratulations to the whole company!
Paul White
Well done -not an easy play! Provoked a lot of discussion in the bar afterwards, and I'm still thinking about it this morning. Very chilling "the economy's doing well - what's not to like" Unsettling. Liked seeing the cast watching throughout, especially Bex and Joe.
Good - good.
Ben Rathe
There are TEN tickets left for Good, and I promise you that is ten too many.
Even though I’d already seen sections of it, and a full run, the full performance blew me away. It is poignant, emotional, funny and beautiful delivered by a brilliant set of performers.
Well done Lisa Thomas, Fiona and all your amazing cast.
Tom Melly
Just wanted to say how much I loved Good. A lot of complicated thoughts are still rattling around my head - mainly deontology shouting "I win!" - which will take some time to unwind. Huge congratulations to the cast - great stuff.
TW that was a hell of a lot of cunts on stage. Was that a record for the SLT? Does anyone track these things? Enquiring minds wish to know...
Christine Theophilis
Really enjoyed(?) Good this evening. Great ensemble performance in a very disturbing, but contemporary play. Though I have to shout out to Nick Howard, who was amazing! If you have a ticket for Saturday, well done you!
Helen Jones
Not an easy watch - all too relevant today, sadly - but a powerful play with so many strong performances. An impressive achievement by all.
Elena Markham
Good is bloody brilliant! Buy a ticket if you haven’t already got one!
Gallery
Reminiscences and Anecdotes
The Director's preview
Director Lisa Thomas introduces Good, CP Taylor’s much-lauded 1981 play. Set in Frankfurt before WWII, Good has been described as a definitive piece concerning the Holocaust.
“The author… rejects the view that Nazi atrocities are… a result of the simple conspiracy of criminals and psychopaths.” How do you think this notion is brought out in the play?
When writing Good, C P Taylor was trying to make sense of what amounted to war crimes on an almost overwhelming scale and as an industrialised process. Though born in Glasgow, he was a Jew of Russian descent and his extended family would have been greatly impacted by the Holocaust.
None of the people we meet in the play are portrayed as monsters. Some are very engaging people. Mostly they are people doing their job, seeing the anti-Jewish sloganising of the Nazis as just a step in the road towards getting Germany out of the chaos that had prevailed after the First World War. He shows how people who would have considered themselves liberals – ‘good’ people as they define themselves – were taken in by the order and prosperity that the National Socialists seemed to promise.
What drew you to choosing this piece to direct?
I’ve known it for many years – I saw the original RSC production as a teenager and it had a massive impact on me, both as a piece of theatre and as a way of trying to explain how ordinary Germans could take part in such heinous crimes. In today’s increasingly intolerant political climate, it seemed to have much to say still about the dangers of tolerating, or going along with policies that attack or disadvantage particular groups of people.
Most of my mother’s extended family who remained in Europe were victims of the Holocaust and I still feel the need to shout about it to honour their memory and try to ensure that something similar does not happen again. It’s also a piece of low-key Brechtian theatre that uses its cast and audience as part of the story – which is an interesting way to approach the story.
There’s a lot of music in the play – what’s the function of it?
The main character is in something of a state of personal crisis due to pressure at home and at work. He hears music at all of the major turning points in his story, from jazz bands to Wagner and Beethoven, or a traditional Bavarian mountain band. They counterpoint his story and to some extent underscore the journey he takes in his head and in actuality. Some is recorded but some is sung on stage to blur the lines between reality and remembrance. The music also lightens the tone of material that could come across as serious and didactic, and allows the audience to see some of the ridiculousness of Halder’s situation.
Tell us about the cast of characters in the play.
The main character is John Halder (Nick Howard), a professor of literature at Frankfurt University and we follow his journey throughout the play. His wife Helen (Bex Law) is depressed, and his mother (Lily Ann Green) is getting frail and demanding. His best friend is Maurice, a Jewish psychiatrist (Alex Watts) who is afraid of the political situation and what it means for him. Maurice is also presented as the only person who sees the truth. As the story progresses, Halder has an affair with one of his students (Claudia Lace).
A novel that he wrote in response to his mother’s problems is seized on by the Nazis and he becomes drawn into helping make policy for them. He joins the Nazis because he is flattered by them and feels it is essential to further his career. He keeps telling himself that their more obnoxious policies are just a device to draw in popular support and will be dropped when they have served their purpose. Other key characters are Freddie (Mitchell Labiak), a major in the SS with whom Halder becomes friends – and who shows the fear at the heart of the party – that one might not match up to the ideal of German manhood. And most chillingly, we meet Adolf Eichmann (Jack King), infamous as the functionary who found the means to industrialise the so-called ‘Final Solution’.
It’s a fascinating and intensely thought-provoking play about a serious subject, and yet presented as entertainment. I hope it will make audiences think and question the way they might react in a similar situation.
See Also
Have there been other SLT productions of this play? Link to them here.
Or add anything that is related within this site. The author's page for instance or other plays with a similar theme.
