Two young Dutch theatremakers reckon with their families’ pasts in a scrappy and affecting piece of documentary storytelling
In January of this year, the largest war archive in the Netherlands digitised and released over 450,000 documents of individuals suspected of collaborating with Nazi Germany. Among the Dutch populace suddenly granted access to millions of pages of historical and personal artefacts were Matthew Schwarz and Cecelia Thoden van Velzen, whose quietly moving account of their findings takes the shape of their new show.
A Court of Paper, which combines monologues, music, audience participation and photo and video projections, mainly consists of two parallel storylines revealed by these documents. One is that of Schwarz’s Jewish great-grandfather Leo who, as a teenager during the war, somehow survived alongside his family despite brush after impossible brush with the regime’s systemic persecution. The other is of van Velzen’s ancestor, through whom we learn of the Netherlands’ takeover by the Wehrmacht and how citizens both defied and adapted to their power.
Schwarz, an actor, is an elegant speaker, and the pair’s conversational dynamic is easy to lean into, especially when van Velzen accompanies on piano. The show’s 100-minute runtime flies by and is clearly just a sliver of hundreds of stories the young theatremakers are eager to tell: they make a number of asides about sections that have been cut, side characters who could’ve filled hours on their own and documents too upsetting to read onstage.
Before the audience can take their seats, the duo greets each member with a questionnaire, party horn and passport-like document. While a lot of this piece is endearing, some parts could do with smoothing out. Core questions are asked about the ethics of archiving, which are engaging, but mostly left until the end. With a little extra wiggle room, the tactile moments would land with even more resonance, such as the near-identical forms from the war, the audience fingerprinting their passports and Schwarz inviting three spectators onstage to share a rug the size of a single transport camp bed.
However rough around the edges, the result is an intimate yet urgent portrait that interrogates the pursuit of truth and memory in today’s scarily familiar climate. That we are left with so much to ponder is the point; this play shows how reading between the lines can lead to a kind of justice.
By Maia Kahn
A Court of Paper appeared at Camden People’s Theatre, London, NW1 2PY. Tuesday 4 – Friday 7 November.