New issue out now! It's that time again, and this month we've got politics on the brain…

With the General Election now officially underway, we have politics on our minds – in all its forms – for our April issue. From the revolutionary Yiddish poets who fired up the streets of East London, to the current crop of social activists who are committed to making the world a better place today. As our pieces show, there is an irrevocable link between Jews and political activism.

We also have an essay on Jewish voting patterns by Geoffrey Alderman; a discussion on the ethics of the ‘right to offend’ by Brian Klug, and a personal reflection by associate Times editor Daniel Finkelstein on whether being Jewish really matters when it comes to casting your vote. There’s a piece from Paris three months after the terrorist attacks there by a former Le Monde senior editor, Sylvain Cypel, and a piece by Dan Carrier about his great uncle Nat – one of the first English speakers to fire a shot in the Spanish Civil War. But if you’ve had enough of politics (already!) don’t despair, there’s plenty to keep you reading.

We’re celebrating two centenaries: one with the chair of the Ben Uri museum, David Glasser, who tells us how he rose from the mean streets of Glasgow to head one of the most exciting art venues in Europe; and on the eve of the Arthur Miller centenary, we’re asking why are there no Jews in the plays of one of the 20th-century's greatest Jewish playwrights? There’s also klezmer from Leeds boys Tantz, an interview with new Israeli novelist Ayelet Gundar-Goshen and a report from the place to be on a Tuesday night in Manchester: the Menorah Film Club. Plus three month’s of cultural listings for the UK and abroad. With all that going on – don’t forget to vote!

By Rebecca Taylor

Review: Oppenheimer – A detailed bio-drama about the father of the atomic bomb chills and exhilarates in equal measure

To make a nuclear bomb, you assemble enriched uranium into a supercritical mass that starts an exponentially growing chain reaction. Tom Morton-Smith’s play assembles the team building the first nuclear bomb and shows the chain reaction that ensues amongst them. And just as a bomb needs a trigger, the “Manhattan Project” needed J Robert Oppenheimer.

The play questions whether the physicists were mad scientists who should have known better than to participate in such a project and how far they felt justified at the time, even if subsequently doubting the genie they had unleashed that cannot be put back in the bottle.

Morton-Smith sees the events through the lens of Oppenheimer, intertwining his intellectual struggle with the physics and his emotional struggle with the need to abandon his early and fervent embrace of communism, which Oppenheimer saw as the only remedy to Fascism, in order to appease the US authorities. He had after all been schooled at New York’s Ethical Culture School, where many of his fellow pupils were also secular Jews and where he discovered the ethical teachings of Judaism. And later he was engaged by other ethical texts and scriptures including the Bhagavad Gita (a 700-verse Hindu scripture in Sanskrit), which stayed with him all his life and Morton-Smith has him quote it at the end of the play.

J Robert Oppenheimer (the J stands for Julius) may have been born in Manhattan, but as the son of German-Jewish immigrants, he was acutely aware of the fate overtaking Europe’s Jews, especially as the US scientific community welcomed an influx of eminent Jewish physicists seeking refuge from the Nazis. The list of characters in the play is in part a roll call of these brilliant fugitives, most of whom would go on to win Nobel Prizes. In addition, the young prodigy had studied under (Jewish-born) Max Born in Göttingen in Germany in the 1920s, gaining his PhD at age 22. So he was much exercised by the rise of fascism in Europe.

After a brief lecture from Oppenheimer, with the audience cast as students, Morton-Smith starts the action with an upbeat party scene on the Berkeley Campus at a Communist fundraiser for International Brigade members off to fight fascism in Spain. It’s the sort of party at which anyone who’s anyone in the intellectual and academic community must be seen. Morton-Smith’s brilliance is to cut between the party and the students and academics in full creative flight as they learn and teach in the lab – using the stage floor as a chalkboard on which they feverishly scribble theorems and theories. Even the chronically unscientific members of the audience (among whose number I count myself) immediately get the feel of how engrossing and exhilarating the pursuit of scientific knowledge and discovery must be for members of the scientific community. This works especially well as a counterpoint to the party segments – all choreographed with huge panache by Scott Ambler.

Everyone in this community is aware of the work of German scientist Werner Heisenberg and his Danish-Jewish mentor Niels Bohr in Europe (as brilliantly imagined in Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen). Is Bohr making a stand against letting Hitler get anywhere near the bomb? Does Heisenberg dread the ‘fall-out’ from The USA getting there first? Well, clearly in the USA they see it as a necessity to get there first and scientists are under intense pressure to do so. But Morton-Smith imagines, with the feel of chilling authenticity, not only the pressure but also the febrile excitement of these extraordinarily focused (often one-track) minds as they realise they are nearing a breakthrough, albeit one that will prove deadly to millions.  The detachment with which the boffins discuss the bombs they call Little Boy and Fat Man and what they are capable of, with a matter-of-factness about the numbers of Japanese likely to be sacrificed, is frighteningly convincing.

John Heffernan brilliantly inhabits the persona of Oppenheimer, mesmerisingly charismatic from the moment he engages with the audience at curtain up. He embodies the struggles and contradictions in the man – a womaniser with “a core of cold iron” – with a wife and mistress; scared that he has the scientific ability “to murder every last soul on the planet, yet at the same time a leader who expects to be followed. And indeed he is the magnet that attracts a huge number of scientists to join him at Los Alamos to work on the Manhattan Project.

Morton-Smith creates wonderfully authentic communities and he plays up the friction between the unruly scientists and the military with their, ahem, 'military' precision at Los Alamos to terrific and rather comedic effect.

Morton-Smith’s portraits of Oppenheimer’s women are especially complex. There’s Catherine Steadman’s mercurial manic depressive Jean Tatlock, the mistress who checks in and out of his life, in her element rallying the intellectuals for the communist cause. And Thomasin Rand’s wonderfully vivid Kitty, another bright and frustrated female intellect, who leaves her previous husband to marry Oppenheimer, only to find herself reluctantly kicking her heels though not her alcohol habit through pregnancies before and during her stay at Los Alamos.

Angus Jackson directs with panache a large cast in a production that sweeps effortlessly from those cocktail parties in Berkeley to the then empty plain of Los Alamos, thanks to designer Robert Innes Hopkins, whose costumes – especially for the women – are both authentic and stunning, and the action is heightened by Grant Oldman’s exhilarating score played live by a superb six-piece band directed by Jonathan Williams, and that organic choreography by Scott Ambler.

By Judi Herman

Oppenheimer runs until Saturday 23 May. 7.30pm, 2pm (Wed/Sun only). £25-£49.50. Vaudeville Theatre, 404 Strand, WC2R 0NH. www.vaudeville-theatre.co.uk

Review: The Jew of Malta – Bracingly amoral violence on the island of Malta (circa 1565)

The different faiths are rubbing along together until politics and money get in the way and then all sides justify their actions as religious duty and malicious antisemitism provides a rationale for action. Not the Middle East today but Malta circa 1565 in Marlowe’s play, The Jew of Malta.

Here Malta is ruled by the Knights of St John (Knights Hospitaller) under Governor Ferneze, ostensibly as an outpost against the Ottoman Turks, although Ferneze is happy to pay the Turks protection money not to be invaded by them. Barabas is the richest merchant in the region but Ferneze plunders his fortune to pay off the threatening Ottomans. The Christian Knights justify taking his money – as a Jew, Barabas is cursed and sinful. He is understandably indignant: “What, bring you Scripture to confirm your wrongs? Preach me not out of my possessions.”

This is evidently a revenge tragedy – the dominant motive is revenge, here for a series of very real injuries. But Marlowe’s play goes beyond revenge, satirising religious hypocrisy, statesmanship and the human condition. We know where Marlowe stands when the Prologue, in the person of Machievel(li) says, “I, Machievel, count religion but a childish toy. 
And hold there is no sin but ignorance.” No one individual or community’s stupidity or vices are spared Marlowe’s ridicule and criticism in what might be the earliest film noir script.

Because this injustice is the trigger for Barabas to embark on a road to hell paved with anything but good intentions. Nobody – Christian, Turk, or even Jew – is safe from his increasingly bloody revenge, especially once he finds a kindred spirit in a newly-purchased slave Ithamore, and together they revel in ever more ingenious methods of murder and even mass slaughter.

At first sight, Marlowe’s play, with its eponymous anti-hero Barabas (whose namesake is the criminal released by Pilate instead of Jesus, at the behest of a Jewish mob according to the Christian Gospels), looks even more uncomfortable viewing for a Jewish audience than The Merchant of Venice. And it seems like a worryingly timely revival in the light of recent antisemitism. But 16th-century Malta is a bear pit where Turks and Christians fight indiscriminately and Marlowe allows Barabas to have the stage to himself to confide in his audience before they get to meet any of the island’s other amoral schemers (including a brace of villainous friars) who are, after all, after his money – or his fair daughter Abigail. And even before Barabas appears, his gleeful Machiavellian plotting comes with the endorsement of Machiavelli himself in that prologue.

Director Justin Audibert’s exhilarating revival points up Marlowe’s vicious humour and intelligence with Jasper Britton’s ruthless Jew as its poster boy. It has all the colour and sweep of a Renaissance painting, thanks to designer Lily Arnold’s glorious vision. Her staging is simple – marble-like steps sweep down from an upper level to the lower thrust stage which has as its focus a trough of water that proves wonderfully useful. And she fills the space with an entrancing palette of colour on costumes that swirl around the place, enhancing Lucy Cullingford’s choreography and in their turn enhanced by Oliver Fenwick’s lighting.

Audibert’s cast clearly enjoy creating equally colourful characters, led by Britton’s frighteningly practical and fearsomely intelligent Barabas, and Lanre Malaolu’s gleeful Ithamore, revelling in his promotion to partner in crime. Geoffrey Freshwater and Matthew Kelly, as those two wicked friars, make as gleeful a pair of plotters as any on the Renaissance stage. There’s attractively seductive work from Beth Cordingley’s avaricious courtesan, and Catrin Stewart makes a feisty Abigail, hand in glove with her father until… Well, that would telling, you’ll have to go and see it to find out!

The terrifc ad hoc klezmer band has added value for those in the know. The pre-show music is traditional wedding fare, ‘Chosen Kallah Mazel Tov’ ('Good Luck to Groom and Bride') and the show opens with another Jewish wedding staple – Barabas leads the cast singing ‘Erev Shel Shoshanim’ ('Evening of Roses') from the Song of Songs, in the popular setting by Yosef Harar and Moshe Dor (timed well for the production’s early April opening as it is part of the Passover Service too). And throughout the show Gareth Ellis’s musicians bring their own colour to the action, thanks also to Jonathan Girling’s original music.

Does it all leave a bad taste in the mouth though, as the action reaches its apocalyptic climax? By that time, everyone has behaved badly and Barabas is not the only one to face retribution. So however Marlowe’s contemporaries reacted, modern audiences are no more likely to burst into gleeful laughter than they would at the climax of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd.

By Judi Herman

The Jew of Malta runs until Tuesday 8 September. 7.30pm & 1.30pm. £5-£45. Swan Theatre, Straford-On-Avon CV37 7LS; 084 4800 1110. www.rsc.org.uk

Man of the Moment: JR reader Paul B Cohen writes about receiving the prestigious Moment Magazine short story award

It is Erev Rosh Hashana, and within an hour we will have 15 people at dinner. My wife, Deborah, is assured and organised, so there’s no frenzy in our household. Until, that is, just before logging off for the evening I received an email any writer would love.

It had been nine months of gestation for the results of Moment Magazine’s Jewish short story competition to emerge, and I’d been impatient to hear how I’d done. I didn't think my tale, Lecha Dodi, was going to win the competition. Though my great friend Rabbi Lewis Warshauer, who lives in New York, said that my story was “perfect” for Moment, which is a long-established journal of Jewish culture, politics and lifestyle.

Lewis had been right: my story had fitted and I was the first place winner of the 2014 Short Story Contest.

One of the books I cherish is James A Michener’s The Source, with a favourite chapter being 'The Saintly Men of Safed'. Michener brilliantly evokes the Kabbalists in that northern, hilltop city who went out in the fields to greet the Sabbath Queen. One of their number was Alkabetz, who penned the transcendent Lecha Dodi Friday night song. I had always wanted to do something with the notion of worshippers walking into the fields, and began writing my contest entry in the middle of December 2013 with this in mind. The deadline was the last day of the year.

I had been to Safed as a teenager. I remember its ancient streets; I can still picture the duck egg blue of synagogue walls – that colour being one to ward off evil.

As I wrote, I also researched the city online, looking at mikvahs (ritual baths), and came up with a central character, Rabbi Mordechai David, who used one particular mikvah before Shabbat, as some pious men do.

Unbidden, the image of a young woman, running across the male worshippers’ line of vision, inserted itself into my creative consciousness. My story coalesced: it would be about the vision of Miriam Levi, running heedlessly, ecstatically, in the fields. The men would wonder: "is that truly Miriam, and if so, why is she disturbing men at prayer?" Rabbi Davide tries to find out.

I arrived to a snowy New York and headed out with Lewis. New York’s 5th Avenue was ablaze with festive lights, throngs of shoppers, and ice skaters at the Rockefeller Center.

I was invigorated by the prospect of meeting the novelists scheduled for the awards ceremony the following evening. Sadly, Alice Hoffman, author of Practical Magic and The Museum of Extraordinary Things, who had been the contest judge and had written thrilling words of praise for my story, was forced to cancel her appearance. Anita Diamant, of The Red Tent fame, would be appearing alongside novelist and academic Dara Horn.

At a dinner before the ceremony I was pleased to meet Danielle Leshaw, a rabbi and writer who had been placed second in the contest, and Courtney Sender, the third place winner. The conversation was all books and being Jewish.

At the ceremony, held at the Jewish Museum on the Upper East Side I read an extract from Lecha Dodi. The stage was then given over to a conversation between Anita and Dara. Their discourse was engaging and humorous.

I left New York on Saturday night, following a Shabbat morning at Habonim, a welcoming Conservative synagogue on the Upper West Side. During my final New York hours, we enjoyed a bracing stroll in Central Park.

Back in England, my life has resumed, but I continue to write and submit short stories. I hope that in a future issue of Jewish Renaissance, you’ll be able to read about Tales of Freedom, my novel of storytelling and resistance, set in Prague and Poland in World War II, and ending up in the land of Israel.

By Paul B Cohen

Paul’s story Lecha Dodi can be read online at Moment Magazine. 

Magical Jewish Morocco: A report from Eveleen Habib, one of JR’s Purim tour members

JR Tour - Morocco - Cemetery - Joan 2

Twenty-six tired yet exhilarated travellers sat down together for supper in a Riad in Marrakech – it was the last night of a wonderful trip and they all wanted to spend that evening together, despite the opportunity to sample the night life in this north African town. How well our group, mainly strangers, had grown to like one another and enjoy the times we spent discussing the day’s activities.

The trip focussed on the Jewish Morocco that still remains – the majority of the community having left in 1948 and 1967. Our guide, Rafi El Maleh, was an important part of this well-organised trip. We learned so much about the history, politics and current situation of both the Jewish and Arab population. There seemed to be nothing he did not know. We laughed at the number of palaces owned by the king (whom Rafi had met more than once in the course of his work on Jewish heritage) and we were moved by so many of his stories about individuals he knew and helped. We admired the research, hard work and passion he had devoted to collecting and conserving Jewish artefacts and whole synagogues, throughout the country of his birth.

There was never a dull moment and we drank in every bit of information that he gave us, it might have been about the extraordinary cemetery we visited in the Fes Mellah (pictured above), or one of the many synagogues that we visited. There were once 11 in the Mellah of Meknes and we met one of the last Jews who still prays in this Imperial City. We visited the royal stables and granary, once home to 15,000 Arabian horses, built by Moulay Ismail, who lived in magnificence but subjected his city to terror. We walked, climbed, and sometimes struggled with, the cobbled narrow streets and the traffic, especially in Marrakech where Rafi literally stopped the traffic for us to cross the roads. In Volubilis the hardier individuals climbed in the sun up a steep road to see the remarkably well-preserved Roman city whilst the others enjoyed mint tea in the small café below.

JR Tour - Morocco - Volubilis arch JL

Volubilis arch

The first two evenings we ate in the attractive Jewish Maimonide club in Fes and enjoyed couscous with meat, vegetables, chicken and an array of the popular and delicious cooked salads in small dishes set out in front of us.  The food in general was lavish and good; when not eating kosher food, we were always able to eat fish and vegetarian food so everyone’s needs were met.

JR Tour - Morocco - KT.Dinner Fez, March 1st

One special experience was meeting four young Moroccan Muslims, founders  of the Mimouna Association, set up to tell their contemporaries about the Jewish heritage of their country that few knew anything about. We ate together at a restaurant on the coast in Rabat and had the opportunity of conversing with them individually. They spoke about their initiatives; organising Hebrew lessons and days of Jewish culture; running the first Holocaust Conference in the Arab world and paying a group visit to Israel. We were impressed by their enthusiasm and eloquence. It seemed as if they are set to be among their country’s elite. It will be a great boost to interfaith relations if they achieve this.

JR Tour - Morocco - Laziza table

With Laziza Dalil of The Mimouna Society

We visited so many places, each one a treat – the lavish mausoleum built to honour King Mohammed V in Rabat; its Kasbah where we had Moroccan tea and almond cookies;  Casablanca’s Jewish Museum with its rich display of Moroccan Jewish artefacts, and its Jewish quarter with kosher bakers, the street of seven shuls and the beautiful Beth el Synagogue.

JR Tour - Morocco - Rafi and Haman's eye - Malcolm

 Rafi with Haman's eye bread

And Purim: celebrated differently but enjoyably. Not as noisy in synagogue as I am used to, but the same notes and words read out to remind us of the near-destruction of the Jewish people – appropriate in an Arab country, albeit one currently well-disposed to its small Jewish population. The group joined the local community in unending dinner and entertainment. We threw ourselves into the atmosphere of the occasion – fascinated by the bread with hard boiled eggs, representing Haman’s eyes, baked inside (pictured above).

JR Tour - Morocco - Purim table - Joan

Purim party

And then the final days in Marrakech where we stayed in the Ksar Anika Riad in the aptly named Rue des Juifs, an oasis of quiet and beauty with a pool in the courtyard and hanging plants. We walked to see the Bahai Palace and in the medina visited a herbalist with his potions, spices and cures for everything. Then to prepare for Shabbat and a wonderful long table set out as if for a wedding with delicious food cooked by Madame Ohayon, wife of Isaac Ohayon who had restored, and was cantor for, the Mellah synagogue some of us visited the next morning.  After a Moroccan cholent lunch we visited the Majorelle Gardens, once owned by Yves St Laurent and then gifted to the town for the benefit of those who love quiet, gardens and water – truly lovely.

JR Tour - Morocco - Last lunch at Ksar Anika - JL

Last lunch at Ksar Anika

And there was much else in this wonderful trip, well-planned, delightful company, all our needs considered. I cannot wait to book another tour with Jewish Renaissance.

By Eveleen Habib

Visit the JR website to see the Magical Jewish Morocco 2016 tour itinerary.

Violinist Irmina Trynkos dazzles at the second JR salon

JR Salon, 10/03/14 © Charlotte Mayhew

A packed crowd of around 60 people attended the second JR salon event this week at Lauderdale House in Highgate. They were there to hear the virtuoso talents of violinist Irmina Trynkos, as well as the sparkling sounds of pianist Marco Fatichenti. And they weren’t disappointed.

Dressed in a jewelled, emerald green evening gown, Irmina treated the audience to a programme full of energy and passion. Irmina opened proceedings with the sweeping Sonata for Violin and Piano in D Minor No.3 Op.108, by Johannes Brahms, followed by a piece by the relatively unknown Polish-German Jewish composer Ignatz Waghalter – his Sonata for Violin and Piano in F Minor Op.5.

Ernest Bloch’s Baal Shem Nigun and George Gershwin’s sprightly Prelude No.1 followed, as well as the theme by John Williams from Shindler’s List, which Irmina played in melancholy and moving style. The concert ended with the quirky gypsy sounds of Maurice Ravel’s Tzigane, played with terrific speed and verve by both violinist and pianist.

The music was interspersed with some background to the composers provided by the warm and engaging broadcaster Rodney Greenberg, who was the presenter for the evening. He and Irmina took time to discuss Waghalter's farewell – and return – to Germany, his fall from the public consciousness and how he made the wrong move of staying in New York rather than LA, as he might have better developed his career in Hollywood. She has taken on the task of reviving his little known works, along with other ‘forgotten’ composers.

The music was followed by drinks and canapés. The elegant, yet intimate, surrounds of Lauderdale House provided the perfect backdrop for the event and we hope to continue our salon series soon.

To find out more about Irmina Trynkos, read our article about her.

By Rebecca Taylor

Photos © Charlotte Mayhew

JR Salon, 10/03/14 © Charlotte Mayhew

JR Salon, 10/03/14 © Charlotte Mayhew

JR Salon, 10/03/14 © Charlotte Mayhew

JR Salon, 10/03/14 © Charlotte Mayhew

JR Salon, 10/03/14 © Charlotte Mayhew

JR Salon, 10/03/14 © Charlotte Mayhew

JR Salon, 10/03/14 © Charlotte Mayhew

JR Salon, 10/03/14 © Charlotte Mayhew

JR Salon, 10/03/14 © Charlotte Mayhew

JR Salon, 10/03/14 © Charlotte Mayhew

JR Salon, 10/03/14 © Charlotte Mayhew

Visit facebook.com/JewishRenaissance for more photos.

JR OutLoud: Judi Herman speaks to the cast of The 2000 Year Old Man and offers listeners a sneak preview of the show

The hotly anticipated rebirth of the legendary comedy shtick is nigh! Mel Brook’s comedy tour de force as the oldest man in the world (Jewish, Yiddish accent), in improvised interviews with ‘TV reporter’ Carl Reiner, subsequently made into a collection of best-seller albums is about to take to the stage. This month, Canadian-born actor, writer and voice-over artist Kerry Shale, together with the British comedian, producer and writer Chris Neill are bringing The 2000 Year Old Man to JW3 in a verbatim performance where the actors wear earbuds and copy the edited recordings word-for-word, intonation-for-intonation.

Judi Herman has been following the continuing story and was ‘thrilled and delighted’* to get a sneak preview for Jewish Renaissance and to talk to the brand new double act of Shale and Neill. Hear the podcast above or download it for later listening.

*see the show to find out where this quote fits in!

The 2000 Year Old Man runs from Monday 9 - Sunday 22 March. 8pm. £6.50-£12.50. JW3, 341-351 Finchley Rd, NW3 6ET; 020 7433 8988. www.jw3.org.uk

Review: The Angry Boater – Joel Sanders nitpicks his way through a new nautical solo show

 

Joel Sanders is angry. This could be down to the fact his parents went against their Jewish-ness and sent him to a Christian school. Perhaps it’s due to his high blood pressure, which he makes a point of taking on stage. Or maybe it’s because living the life of Riley on London’s canalways isn’t as relaxing as the comedian thought it would be.

Born and raised Jew-ish – the laidback kind that eat “circumcised pigs” – in Ruislip, Sanders has remained loyal to our busy capital. Apart from the few years he spent in America, which he’ll be sure to vent to you about in the show. The 40-something comic once taught English at northwest London’s Haydon School, before devoting all his time to the Comedy Bunker club, also in Ruislip. Then one day the stress of city life became too much and, against his father’s advice – “Jews don’t live on boats” – Sanders bought a boat.

Split into two 40-minute halves, The Angry Boater is loaded with absurd anecdotes. Have you ever been shouted at for putting rubbish in a bin? Sanders has. How about being ignored by a coal-toting Frenchman? Because Sanders has checked that one off too. In fact some of his stories are so laughable that they seem unreal, until you notice fellow boaters in the audience grinning and nodding in agreement.

Like many pro funnymen, Sanders is affable and unassuming, dressed simply in a plain black t-shirt and jeans. He looks a bit like a dad and has a habit of waffling on like one too, but the wait for his punchlines is always worth it. And they’re not all nautical either. Sanders weaves in enough general gripes to keep us land-dwellers happy. After all, you need only be human to understand just how frustrating a trip to Homebase can get. And while these stressful encounters may be pushing Sanders’ blood pressure to new heights, his accounts of them are raising laughs.

By Danielle Goldstein

The Angry Boater runs every Tuesday until 17 March. 7.30pm. £10, £7 adv. The Bargehouse, 46a De Beauvoir Crescent, N1 5RY. www.angryboater.com

Review: A View from the Bridge – Ivo van Hove's moving and powerful production of Arthur Miller's shattering drama

It’s hard to imagine a more powerful – or more iconoclastic – production of Arthur Miller’s shattering meditation on family relationships gone bad and immigrants trying to make good in 1950s New York. But director Ivo van Hove comes close.

I use the word iconoclastic because more conventional productions evoke that specific 1950s setting, although they are using the specific to also evoke the general. In van Hove’s stripped down production – on designer Jan Versweyveld’s rectangular arena – the events of the play are as if under a microscope, focused by Michael Gould’s fine portrayal of lawyer/Greek Chorus Alfieri so that we the audience may observe them with growing incredulity and horror. There is an eerie timeless quality to this setting, which throws into relief the contemporary resonances of the illegal immigrants’ plight and desperation all too clearly.

Italian-American made good protagonist, Eddie Carbone (Mark Strong), reluctantly takes in his wife Beatrice’s (Nicola Walker) relatives from Sicily. Working men have been driven to leave their wives and families for years at a time because of a lack of work in the depression on their island. These illegal immigrants live with the fear of being discovered, though "shopping" your countrymen to the police is likely to bring down a worse fate on the whistle-blower. The search for a better life, the willingness to work all hours, to face up to separation from loved ones and to the pain of longing for them, applies to the Jews who made their painful way from the pogroms and persecution of Europe and to successive generations of economic migrants from Africa and Asia to Europe and the Americas as much as to these Italians.

As it becomes apparent that the close affectionate relationship between Eddie and Catherine (Phoebe Fox), the niece he has raised as his daughter after his wife’s sister’s death is much too close for comfort on his part, and his affection becomes aggressively possessive and even abusive. Again the play becomes chillingly timely – and timeless. His not so latent homophobia, accusing the newly-arrived Rodolpho (Luke Norris) of being a pretty-boy homosexual is certainly of its time, yet still contemporary.

Timeless though the play and production may be, the actors manage to vividly evoke the 1950s, even in the plainest of costumes (by An d’Huys) and barefoot too. You can visualise Strong’s powerful Eddie working on the docks as a longshoreman, then at home as a terrifyingly insistent and intense character. He does not care who sympathises with him; yet the audience watches his self-destruction with horrified incredulity, channelled by Alfieri’s own impotence to reason with this man so out of control.

Catherine is performed vibrantly by Fox, who sets the stage aglow; first leaping into her uncle’s arms, shining with excitement about her first job, and then glowering with determination and anger as he places obstacles in her path to marriage with her young immigrant lover. Equally Walker as Beatrice conveys vividly and heartbreakingly her disappointment and discomfiture in the face of her now sexless marriage and the reason for her husband’s neglect, but also the magnificent warmth of a Sicilian matriarch, with so much to offer her husband and niece – and indeed her needy newly-arrived relatives.

Norris is perfectly cast as the pretty blonde Rodolpho, his different and delicate good looks and sensitivity making it plausible not only that he is the object of Catherine’s affections but also Eddie’s hatred. Emun Elliott’s dark, more conventionally Mediterranean Marco is touching in his longing for home and family and determination to make good so far away from them and equally plausible in his own fiery reaction to Eddie’s actions.

My only cavil with the power and intensity of this two-hour (no interval) play is in the insistent soundtrack throughout and a visceral coup de theatre at the end. Neither increase the power or intensity as both are fuelled by the extraordinary ensemble acting acting out Miller’s shattering story. I’d like to think the audience, who rose to their feet almost as one at the end, would have given them a standing ovation even without this final stage effect.

By Judi Herman, who saw the production at the Young Vic before it transferred to the West End.

The View from the Bridge runs until 11 April. 7.45pm, 2.45pm (Wed/Sat only). £19.50-£62.50. Wyndhams Theatre, Charing Cross Rd, WC2H 0DA; 084 4482 5120. www.delfontmackintosh.co.uk

Artist Julian Hanford seeks crowdfunding to commemorate the Holocaust with six million domino tiles

London-based artist Julian Hanford is planning to create an art installation composed of six million domino tiles to commemorate World War II and the 70 years that have passed since its end. The project, FALL, is estimated to cost £1.58m and Hanford is looking to you, the public, for help.

A Phundee.com page will be set up for people to make donations directly. The more you give, the bigger your gifts, which range from FALL t-shirts to owning one of the custom dominoes.

FALL, which will be stacked by domino champion Robin Weijers and co, is said to be bigger than the halls at Alexandra Palace once completed. The scale of the installation is meant to communicate the number of lives lost during Hitler's reign, including Gypsies, Poles, Communists, homosexuals, Russians, the mentally ill and, of course, Jews.

The art piece will be on display in Berlin at the end of 2015 and stand for six days to mark the six years of WWII. At noon on the sixth day, while streamed live online, a Holocaust survivor will knock over the first domino and set off a chain reaction that won't stop until the last tile falls 12 hours later.

For more information, visit www.fall15.com or follow them at @fallevent15.

By Danielle Goldstein