Eli Gelb, Pearl Chanda and Alex Waldmann in Broken Glass [Tristram Kenton]

Broken Glass
Young Vic Theatre
☆☆☆☆

Set in Brooklyn in 1938, Arthur Miller’s psychological drama Broken Glass – about the breakdown of a Jewish couple’s marriage and the rise of fascism in Germany – resonates more now than it did in 1994.

Sylvia Gellburg (Pearl Chanda) has developed a strange paralysis of the legs. Dr Harry Hyman (Alex Waldmann) believes it’s psychosomatic and may stem from her husband Philip (Eli Gelb), his emotional distance, and the newspapers she’s been reading.

Sylvia is horrified by Kristallnacht and the violent attacks on Jewish communities unfolding in Germany. Men are humiliated, forced to scrub pavements with toothbrushes while onlookers laugh. Individuals and nations turn away, convinced it will pass.

Dr Hyman tries to talk through her fears and Sylvia forms a connection with him, one she seems to have lost with her husband. Her deteriorating relationship with Philip is painfully observed: Gelb gives a compelling portrayal of a man whose outward confidence gradually crumbles, revealing self-doubt, loathing and impotence.

The performances are top-notch but Rosanna Vize’s set design and Jordan Fein’s staging obscure the view from certain seats.

Adam Silverman keeps the lighting up on the audience – seated on three sides – for the first hour or so, highlighting perhaps today’s tendency towards indifference or numbness to current atrocities, the resurgence of populist politics and the rise in anti-Semitism.

Sussie Juhlin-Wallén’s costumes are first-rate. The stacks of newspapers from then and now feel a tad heavy-handed, while the period oddity of a plastic water cooler is harder to decode.

It runs for two interval-less hours but the pace never falters.

Recommended.

Until 18 April
youngvic.org