Arthur Miller’s penultimate play, set in 1930s New York, provides a unique, if uneasy, perspective on Nazi Germany in this superbly cast revival from Jordan Fein
Arthur Miller wrote Broken Glass, which charts the psychosomatic response of Jewish American Sylvia Gellburg to the rise of Hitler and persecution of Germany’s Jews, in 1994, aged almost 80. The title evokes the destruction on 9 November 1938 of Jewish businesses and property on Kristallnacht – the so-called ‘night of broken glass’.
Sylvia and husband Phillip are comfortably off New Yorkers, though their marriage is far from it. After she's suddenly paralysed when reading about the horrors of Kristallnacht, Phillip calls in a doctor, who concludes that Sylvia's problems are closer to home – if only couples therapy existed in the 1930s, when Broken Glass is set. Pearl Chanda’s Sylvia is extraordinarily tense and troubled and seems unable to connect and share her woes with her empathetic, though admittedly curious sister Harriet (vividly played by Juliet Cowan). Eli Gelb is terrific as the formidable Phillip, who towers over his wife in need – who he sees merely as needy – clearly unable to understand her predicament.
With reports of the rise of antisemitism here in the UK and elsewhere across the globe, this vivid revival is at once timely and discomfiting. Award-winning young Jewish director Jordan Fein and a superbly cast company make the most of designer Rosanna Vize’s surreal and panoramic set. Carpeted in red, with wallpaper to match and taking up the length the theatre, a huge room crowds into the audience space too, so we are effectively all in it together.
It’s hard to feel at home, however, especially as it is overlooked on one end by a window, accessed by a door, resembling the projectionist’s box at the back of a cinema – and characters do indeed survey the scene from the window. Yet, the space is both home for the Gellburgs and possibly a consulting room for Dr Harry Hyman the good Jewish doctor, played by Alex Waldmann with a blend of authority, empathy and curiosity.
Dr Hyman’s wife Margaret, a sympathetic Nancy Carroll, also becomes involved, fascinated by this particular case of her husband’s. Meanwhile, Phillip’s employer Stanton Case (Nigel Whitmey), the head of a bank of mortgage lenders, proves an unempathetic boss as their relationship descends into an argument that brings on a dangerous, potentially fatal, illness for the beleaguered Phillip.
Though the characters can be said to have an almost satisfactory conclusion, Broken Glass is certainly no fairytale. This winning Miller drama is a multilayered feat drenched in clever nuance.
By Judi Herman
Photos by Tristram Kenton
Broken Glass runs until Saturday 18 April. 7.30pm, 2.30pm (Wed & Sat only). From £20 (from £15 concs). Young Vic, SE1 8LZ. youngvic.org