Nathan the
Wise
Evening Standard
It
says a lot about our troubled sensibilities that, on witnessing a host of
potentially explosive showdowns between Jew and Christian, Muslim and Jew, we automatically
fear the worst. Especially as the setting is
But
such negativity discounts the fact that ‘Nathan the Wise’ (1779) is the work of
that great writer, humanist and all-round optimist of the German Enlightenment,
Gotthold Lessing. Thus his most famous play, inexplicably unproduced in
The
three great monotheistic religions come into contact via the sultan Saladin, a
young Knight Templar and the eponymous Jew. An intricate web of connections is
woven, as the Templar rescues Nathan’s daughter from a fire and the bankrupt
Saladin asks the wealthy merchant for help.
When
Edward Kemp’s confident new translation was first heard two years ago at
But
Michael Pennington steadies everything with his astute Nathan, sidestepping
Saladin’s importuning with 1001 Nights-style storytelling. Sam Troughton’s
Templar is all proud, impetuous, youthful conviction and Vincent Ebrahim as
Saladin has a lovely way of making the most unpromising-sounding statements end
positively.
Patrick
Connellan’s evocative design has palm trees overhang a backdrop of burnished
gold sliding panels and a typical mosaic design printed on the wooden floor. It’s
a tranquil aesthetic, suitable for this unusual fable of the still, small voice
of peace winning through in the
Guardian,
This
is a play whose time has come again. First, G E Lessing’s classic of German
Enlightenment drama was picked up by
Set
in
The
message could hardly be more timely. But Lessing’s action is at odds with his
theme. Nathan is wise and virtuous, but Christianity is represented by an intemperate
Knight Templar who is all young, hotheaded and full of antisemitic arrogance. As
Eric Bentley pointed out, the play is really addressed to Christians, telling
them to mend their ways. It moves beyond preachiness to show the need for
reconciliation and harmony, it cannot fail to move.
But
Anthony Clark’s production, in aiming for period fidelity, ends up looking like
an exotic Aladdin; this is a world, in Patrick Connellan’s design, of pearly
turbans, curled slippers and flower-encrusted robes. The production is also a
little too laid-back, as if the battle for mutual understanding has been
achieved before the action has begun. That said, Michael Pennington endows
Nathan with just the right mixture of wiliness, wisdom and judicious stoicism.
Sam Troughton’s Templar is the epitome of impetuous, brazen folly. And, even
if, Vincent Ebrahim’s Saladin is hardly the lion demanded by the text, Shelley
King lends his sister with a wonderful sinuous guile. But what really matters
is Lessing’s play: a seminal piece of world drama written in 1779 and banned by
the Nazis in 1933, its theme speaks urgently and forcefully to us today.
Metro,
Rather
improbably, German Enlightenment drama has already provided some of the year’s
theatrical highlights in
When
his adopted daughter is saved by a Knight Templar, the Jewish merchant Nathan
finds himself caught between the rival worlds of Muslims and Christians,
needing to promote “unprejudiced affection” among his multi-faith neighbours.
Obviously
this is a play rich in resonance for contemporary audiences. And while I’m not
sure it contains any answers to the world’s current woes, it certainly makes
for an entertaining and morally inspiring evening. Edward Kemp’s prose
translation of Lessing’s poetic original is lucid and peppy, although there is
a sense that the action’s poetic logic would be better served by verse.
Oddly,
Anthony Clark’s lively production has a certain pantomime air. You find
yourself wanting to shout: “Behind you!” when Justin Avoth’s unfeasibly wicked
Patriarch makes his entrance.
But
that’s not inappropriate: ‘Nathan the Wise’ belongs to the same moral universe
as Shakespeare’s late plays, where the mysterious workings of providence ensure
the triumph of the forces of goodness and tolerance, whatever the apparent
odds. Alas, it’s not realism.
The Daily Telegraph,
If
ever a dusty old play spoke urgently and movingly to our current concerns, it is
‘Nathan the Wise’ (1779) by the German dramatist Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.
A product
of enlightenment values so sadly eclipsed in these troubled times, its plea for
religious tolerance and a brotherhood of common humanity seems almost unbearably
poignant when religious hatred seems to be rearing its head everywhere.
The
play was banned by the Nazis for its sympathetic depiction of a Jew. And were he
alive today, Lessing would probably be the subject of a fatwa from the Muslims.
For this is a play that forcefully and beautifully argues that no one faith has
a monopoly on truth and that what matters isn’t the religion we choose to follow,
but the way we behave as people.
The
action is set in
An
arrogant Knight Templar, reprieved from execution by Saladin, falls in lover with
her after rescuing her from a fire, agonising with his conscience as he believes
her to be Jewish.
The
plot develops into a fascinatingly complex knot involving Christians, Muslims and
Jews, and Lessing untangles it with subtlety, grace and a final scene of revelation
and reconciliation reminiscent of late Shakespeare.
Edward
Kemp’s fine translation, which combines Germanic seriousness with a winning English
wit, and cuts the sprawling four-and-a-half hour original down to a manageable playing
time of less than three hours, was first presented in
All
credit to Hampstead’s artistic director, Anthony Clark, for recognising that the
piece deserved a wider audience. However, his own production fails to match the
lucidity and searching intelligence of Steven Pimlott’s staging in the Minerva Studio.
While
Pimlott opted for a stark white-box design and dress that simultaneously suggested
ancient and modern,
The
acting is sometimes rough too. Noël Coward’s advice to actors was to remember
their lines and not to bump onto the scenery, but in a wretched performance on
the first night, Anna Carteret failed both these rudimentary tests as Rachel’s
Christian guardian, Daya.
Vincent
Ebrahim captures the wit, but misses the dangerous power, of Saladin and Celia
Meiras is dismayingly bland as Rachel. And though Michael Pennington gives a
benignly twinkling performance as Nathan, coming on with all the reassuring
folksiness of Rabbi Lionel Blue, he fails to locate the intense spirituality
that Michael Feast discovered in the character in
The
best performance comes from Sam Troughton as the arrogant Templar, whom he
plays as a mass of insecurity, religious prejudice and dangerous mood-swings,
and there is strong support from Justin Avoth doubling as a delightful dervish
and a sinister Christian patriarch.
But
don’t let the occasional inadequacies of the acting put you off. Not only is ‘Nathan
the Wise’ both relevant and resonant, it is also one of those rare plays where
you genuinely want to know what will happen next.
A word
of caution though, to Christian fundamentalists already simmering with rage
over ‘Jerry Springer – the Opera’ and Howard Brenton’s forthcoming play about
Daily Mail,
As
in ‘Playing With Fire’ at the National Theatre, multicultural issues are meant
to be distilled into this drama, billed as “a plea for religious tolerance” and
ser in Jerusalem at the time of the Crusades.
And
on the face of it, the 18th-century German work by Gotthold Ephraim
Lessing seems every inch a play for today as Jews, Muslims and Christians try
to get along. But the fact that it was once banned by the Nazis lends it kudos
it doesn’t deserve. The story is little more than a piece of half-baked
melodrama.
The
central dilemma involves a rich Jewish merchant who’s been raising his
Christian daughter secretly as a Jew. This is the cause of moral outrage in a
devout young Christian crusader who happens to have saved the young woman in
question from a fire. And although a local abbot gets a bit hot under the
cassock, too, the ruling sultan takes it all in his pointy-toed stride – after all,
it’s really no big deal.
Instead
of the terrifying predicament Shakespeare conjures up with Shylock in ‘The
Merchant of Venice’, Lessing allows the action to drift into Teutonic posturing
and the sort of farcical coincidence even Bollywood producers might sniff at. It’s
a mystery, then, as to why Anthony Clark deemed the play suitable for the
Hampstead – a home of new writing which has traditionally tackled the issues of
the day.
The
occasional boisterousness of Edward Kemp’s generally bland translation is
rarely exploited and it feels like an olde worlde episode of ‘The Archers’,
only less racy.
Torn
between the Muslims after his money and the Christian crusader after his
daughter, Michael Pennington’s wise old merchant Nathan faces a choice: prophet
or loss. Although Nathan has experienced his own personal tragedies, Pennington
makes him so nice he’s no longer interesting. And the fact that he is besieged
by some very un-kosher ham-acting leaves him looking none too clever.
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