Tosca's Kiss

Synopsis

In 1946 Rebecca West arrives at the world s first ever war-crimes trial where she is witness to a young US lawyer who faces one of the most difficult cross examinations of his life - because although Hjalmar Schacht may not have been a mass murderer, he was the economist who made the Third Reich work. In a world where wars are waged, dictators overthrown and justice meted out, nothing is simple when idealism clashes with political reality. Rebecca West, journalist, novelist and critic, was described by Kenneth Tynan in 1954 as the 'the best journalist alive' and is perhaps best known for her book about the Nuremberg trials - The Meaning of Treason.

Our Review:

8 May 2006

Based on Rebecca West's experiences as a reporter at the Nuremberg Trials for war crimes in 1946, Kenneth Jupp's thought-provoking new play forces us to re-examine our pre-conceived notions about responsibility for the rise of the Nazis in Germany and the subsequent atrocities of the Holocaust. And with the recent and ongoing trials of Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam Hussein, the subject could hardly be more apposite.

Framed by West giving public readings from her book about the trials, A Train of Powder, the action focuses on the case of Hjalmar Schacht, Hitler's Minister of Economics, who claimed to be just 'doing his job' and not complicit in the crimes against humanity - although his financial genius enabled the Nazi regime to flourish.

West is sympathetic to her friend Tom Morton, the American lawyer prosecuting Schacht, who is still recovering from the trauma of witnessing the liberation of Dachau concentration camp. But she starts an affair with one of the U...

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