Archived copy". uc-ipc.com. Archived from the original on 20 August 2008 . Retrieved 17 January 2022. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title ( link) The play commences in January 1933. It was in January of that year that Hitler took office. Other historical moments referred to in the play are included: The imaginary doctor man is missing the mark. Delivering a simple idea of what the words are saying. It’s depressingly easy to see why Cooke would want to revive Good now - the number of antisemitic incidents reported in the UK reached an all-time high in 2021, undoubtedly fuelled by the rise of far-right internet groups luring in supporters through memes and so-called edgy humour. Killing Jewish people is obviously a bad thing, Halder says to us in the aftermath of the Night of Broken Glass. But Taylor doesn’t make enough of these asides for us to have any real connection with Halder. We’re given nothing to latch on to.

It was interesting to see how there were no changes for the scene switching, one character just said their line next as if it was a continuation. It would have been interesting to see what a difference a full cast made as opposed to just 2 doing the other roles. The only real big difference was the appareance of Hitler in the text. Which I can understand why it was left out of the most recent production. Likewise there was more interaction between the women than when Sharon was doing all the parts. Good starring David Tennant announces new West End venue and 2021 dates | WhatsOnStage". www.whatsonstage.com . Retrieved 14 September 2020. Listen... What it could be... Is nothing I touch real? ... Is it? My whole life like that... I do everything, more or less, that everybody else does... But I don't feel it's real. Like other people. On the other hand, it could be other people feel the same thing." All we can do is hold on to each other. If we're good to each other. And the people around us-- if we try the utmost to be good..."

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Good is a 2008 drama film based on the stage play of the same name by Cecil Philip Taylor. It stars Viggo Mortensen, Jason Isaacs, and Jodie Whittaker, and was directed by Vicente Amorim. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 8 September 2008. Halder dons an SS uniform and visits a concentration camp where he is confronted by the reality that his choices and actions helped put into motion. By rationalised and intellectually reasoned steps he is absorbed into the direction of the death camps, a transformation all the more chilling because it does not seem dramatic, until the last horrible resounding note of the play. It follows John Halder (Tennant), a liberal German professor with a Jewish best friend – Elliott Levey’s Maurice – and a fragile wife – Sharon Small’s Anne – plus sundry extra characters played by Levey and Small. The action begins in Frankfurt, 1933, as John and Maurice try to convince each other that Nazi antisemitism will burn itself out soon. Maurice is scared; John simply finds it illogical.

But it grows in power, and Tennant really is terrific. As I said, the man knows a thing or two about portraying evil; his performance is perfectly judged. He never tries to sell us John as a nice guy: the emptiness is always there. I’ll be honest and say it feels a little familiar– I think you probably do feel a little more detached, a little less certain about things as you hit middle age. It’s disturbing that John doesn’t care enough about those he professes to love to try and save them; but it’s equally disturbing that he has so little investment in the murderous regime that he is a part of. Is he an unusual case? =CP Taylor’s most chilling inference is that we all might be susceptible to fascism if our society turns fascist. In that context, it’s easy to see why he’s so doggedly persisted with Dominic Cooke’s revival of CP Taylor’s 1981 play ‘Good’, which has twice been postponed by the pandemic.

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Good is a play about the causes rather than the consequences of Nazism, about morality and seduction. It explores how a "good" man gets caught up in the intricate web of personal and social reasons why the average person might be seduced in to what we see as abhorrent. The author thus rejects the view that the Nazi atrocities are explained as a result of the simple conspiracy of criminals and psychopaths. Furthermore, the lessons of Nazism and the play are not just about the revulsion resulting from six million dead but are also a warning about popular movements that lead to holocausts. Not judgmental of its protagonist, Good invites us to question just what a "good" man is and does and where the bounds of responsibility lie. [3] He wouldn’t sign my diary. Is it because it means I may not have seen the show, I may not be supporting the theatre; that it’s more likely to be sold on blank lined paper; or that I would put a contrary manifesto atop it and play it off as words blessed by him? That was tragic. It distracted me from the ‘Good’ play and its details. The play has been performed by many regional theatre companies, including the Havant Arts Centre in 1986, [9] the North Wall Arts Centre in 2008, [10] the Hilberry Theater in 2010, [11] the Royal Exchange Theatre, [12] Everyman Theatre, Cardiff in 2011, [13] and the Burning Coal Theatre Company in 2013. [14]

Historian Frank McDonough praised the film, recommending it on the historical podcast 'We Have Ways of Making You Talk'. [5] See also [ edit ] a b c d e f g Clive Barker; Simon Trussler (April 1993). New Theatre Quarterly 33: Volume 9. p.44. ISBN 9780521448123 . Retrieved 8 January 2017. Halder’s detachment from reality is represented by a musical score that he hears in his head, drowning out whatever he doesn’t want to deal with — and which eventually becomes an actual band of inmates at Auschwitz. It is, crucially, a play that uses music throughout, both as a way of interrogating the psyche of its central character and as a dramatic device. Sometimes the tragedy is expressed as musical comedy; sometimes the music underscores the horror. Edith Stein - a victim of the Holocaust who was murdered at Auschwitz, fellow protégée with Heidegger of the phenomenologist Edmund Husserl

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It was first performed by the RSC in 1981; this production, starring David Tennant as a mild-mannered German professor who gradually becomes a paid-up Nazi, has been delayed several times by the pandemic. Director Dominic Cooke has crafted a punchy first act, but he can’t save the second from Taylor’s stodgy script. Intro) "The writing of this play is my response to a deeply felt, and deeply experienced, trauma [...] as well as the intellectual awareness, not at all deeply felt, of my role as the 'Peace Criminal' in the Peace 'Crimes' of the current West against the Third World-- my part in the Auschwitzes we are all perpetrating today." In his director's note, Frank Lyons draws a moral parallel with issues of today - namely Apartheid and 'the final solution - a nuclear holocaust. But the real irony of a play like 'Good' is that the author had the benefit of hindsight, while the Halders of today do not. The premiere production had a huge impact, and went on to play at the RSC’s home in Stratford and then on tour, plus it transferred to the Aldwych Theatre in the West End. It then became a celebrated play internationally, including a hit run on Broadway. Good has continued to be staged over the years, and was also adapted into a movie in 2008 starring Viggo Mortensen, Jason Isaacs and Jodie Whittaker. Good is a play in two acts, written by British playwright Cecil Philip Taylor. First published for Methuen Drama in 1982, it was originally commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1981 and was subsequently seen all over the world. [1] Good has been described as the definitive piece written about the Holocaust in the English-speaking theatre. [2] Set in pre-war Germany, it shows how John Halder, a liberal-minded professor whose best friend is the Jewish Maurice, could not only be seduced into joining the Nazis, but step-by-rationalised-step end up embracing the Final Solution, justifying to his conscience the terrible actions involved. [3] Plot overview [ edit ]