Steven Berkoff: Religion & Anarchy review, Jermyn Street Theatre

My life already, where to start on Steven Berkoff's new entertainment, Religion & Anarchy?  The flyer says the five one act plays that comprise the piece address the latent anti-semitism still visible in Britain. Certainly the concern over the Daily Mail's insidious asides in recent times, and increased attacks on places of worship, point to new levels of hysteria around religious difference, but it's also a fact that religious intolerance dominates the global agenda right now.

Mose supposes

Berkoff's writing is ever exciting and visceral and anti semitism is certainly in there, but so too are gentle explorations of Jewishness. The first two shorts are beautiful in their characterisation and their use of language. How to Train an Anti-Semite is a two hander in which a woman incites her husband to show solidarity with Palestinian families trapped in Gaza by demonising all yids, but his concerns are the wogs and Pakis and Poles and Albanians closer to home. We soon see, however, that his racism is as careless as his endearments - cunt and twat - to his wife. It's a reflex, not an emotion. As she calls for a new Hitler, he's half awed, half amused, by her righteousness. I wasn't convinced it was anything more than posturing on both parts.

Conversely, Guilt, has the same actors as elderly East End Jews, fondly talking through their favourite foods and food memories in glorious detail while wishing their estranged son - who appears behind them at the window in Christ-like poses - would visit. Was it religion that came between him and his father?  We never find out. Both thirty minute plays are beautiful, but each is ten minutes too long. The plays in the second half are more immediate. Roast is a terrifically spooky mother-daughter bedtime story scene. Line-Up and Gas are set in the death camps.

In conclusion: The holocaust pieces made me uncomfortable. Gas depicts three men dying in a gas chamber and I felt it was somehow disrespectful to the millions who were murdered, but my companion, who was of Jewish extraction, thought the length of the piece was what made it grate.  The whole event would be better for judicious editing.

References
Jermyn Street Theatre, Tickets

Jermyn Street Theatre, 16 Jermyn Street, London SW1Y 6ST   Run ends 26 October.