Synopsis A landmark play in the history of post-war British theatre, Chicken Soup with Barley is a political drama based upon Wesker's own experiences of growing up in a Jewish family in the East End of London. Spanning three decades, it documents the effect of post-war social issues on Jewish families such as Wesker's. For the Kahn family the Promised Land is neither the Jerusalem of their forebears, not the basement flat they live in now. Their dreams of a better world is sustained by the vitality of the community around them, and is put to the test in the anti-fascist riots of the 1930s. History begins to take its toll as the mother's ideals and resilience contend with a father's weakness in a deeply moving portrait of the forces that drive us apart, and the ties that bind us together.
What a creaky vessel this venerable play now seems. The first part of Arnold Wesker’s Trilogy, written in 1958 (it was followed by Roots and I’m Talking About Jerusalem) Chicken Soup with Barley draws on the writer’s own experience of growing up in a noisy, politically committed Jewish family before and after the Second World War.
There are three acts, spanning the decades from 1936 to 1956, with nine or ten-year intervals between them. The first, set on the day of the Battle of Cable Street when Mosley’s Blackshirts faced Jews and socialists in the East End, provides an introduction to the Kahn family: Sarah the long-suffering mother, Harry her feckless husband, teenage idealist Ada, her young brother Ronnie and the left-wing friends who regard their home as a rallying point.
In this production, which began life at Nottingham Playhouse, director Giles Croft cannily uses newsreel sound-track to pinpoint the historical moment at the beginning of each act. The second opens to the sound of the post-war Labour victory. The third ends at the time of the Hungarian Revolution. The parents’ bickering, the father’s weakness and the children’s rites of passage are all played out in terms of political conviction and against the background of world events.
Shona Morris as Sarah copes well with the difficult task of combining stereotypical tea-making Jewish mother with political firebrand. Wesker’s women wipe the floor with their men. Even Ronnie, a cook with ambitions to write - and clearly a Wesker self-portrait (played by a fervent Sam Talbot) - fears that he is more like his passive father than his passionate mother. Simon Schatzberger’s shambling Harry becomes a tragic, dependent figure while Rachel Edwards makes the most of her opportunities as Ada both while announcing her plan to escape to a simple life in the country and as a shopkeeper’s wife with limited horizons.
The structure of Chicken Soup with Barley with the requirement of two intervals and tedious resetting between scenes, as well as longeurs including a complete card game in Act III, make it a period piece. But we would be ill-advised to dismiss this humane play, with its articulate, politicised working-class characters, as dated too readily. The expression of public concerns through private experience is as valuable as ever.
An extremely creaky play and two intervals of 15 minutes each makes it too long an evening. The message is powerful but, although the characters are drawn from Wesker's own life, they are often just stereotypes making it very diffiuclt for the actors to show true emotions. What is remarkable is that so many of the actors are so moving. - 80.177.231.164)
26 Oct 05
"Chicken Soup with Barley" - Tricycle - highly recommended (to 19
November)
What a phenomenal play. As Benedict Nightingale wrote, Wesker is an
intensely Jewish writer, which means that (in Kenneth Tynan's definition) he "thinks internationally yet feels domestically".
This production by the Nottingham Playhouse is completely credible: the
actors and actresses have been carefully coached and every Jewish person in the audience will recognise a family member - even if under a different name - and will experience tugging on many personal chords.
On one level, it is the emotion-charged story of a Jewish family (the
Kahns) in London from 1936 (in the East End) to 1956 (when they've moved, to where is unclear - but it isn't Hendon - see below). There's Sarah (wonderfully played by Shona Morris), a matriarch who is constantly chivvying her
somewhat undynamic husband Harry. She is always producing tea and sandwiches and chicken soup and is eternally optimistic, believing that food and sleep makes for happiness. Harry is rather weak and ends up incontinent having had two strokes. They have two children, Ada and Ronnie. The play also shows their extended family, eg Harry's sister Cissy, an activist who works for a trade union. As the family grows up, its members grow more distant both physically and politically, and the links between the disintegration of the family and the weakening of the Socialist ideal is the leitmotif of the play.
The interplay between the family members is inexorably linked to the fate of Socialism - beginning with the optimism of the Battle of Cable Street in 1936 (when the communists/ left wing sympathisers routed the police) and ending with the near fatal blow to Communism represented by the crushing by the Soviets of the Hungarian uprising in 1956. On the way we see the exploiting of workers in the East End garment industry and the establishment of Israel. The daughter Ada (played by Rachel Edwards who is excellent), who was a Socialist Pioneer when young, marries David and they 'opt out' to a farm in Norfolk, where he makes furniture. The son Ronnie - who writes socialist poetry when young - ends up as a chef in Paris. In the final scene
he comes back to his parents' home. He hates his job and is completely disillusioned. His mother Sarah remains a member of the Communist Party and they argue bitterly about whether Communism still has relevance. For Sarah, Communism is about caring for others. As she says, "If you don't care, you'll die .. you want me to move to Hendon and forget who I am?"
The themes of the play, written in 1958, are timeless and universal: the tensions between generations, partly due to the different external
circumstances of our formative years; the distancing of families with
time; the events which shape our political involvement; and the realisation with time that our parents are not after all infallible. It is also a salutary reminder that as Sarah says "politics is living". The big ideological battles may have been decided since the events of Wesker's play, but political engagement remains important, if we are to keep the extremists out. With young people more disillusioned with politics than ever before, this central message of Wesker's wonderful play has arguably never been more important. - 81.153.178.28)
Film information line 020 7328 1900. Society of London Theatre member. The theatre has a cafe - La Brunelloise Traiteur - serving pre theatre snacks and meals from £2-£6.
Whatsonstage.com - Discount London theatre tickets, theatre news and reviews, Theatre videos, Theatre discussion, National Theatre Listings. Covering London's West End, all of Theatreland and all UK theatre. The best
for London Theatre Ticket Discounts.
