Anna Burnside reviews a production with solid performances but lacks theatricality.
In her elegant long skirt, hat and gloves, the birdlike Mrs Stern is an unlikely prisoner. Until it becomes clear that this is Germany in the 1930s and she is a Jewish intellectual.
She is also, we learn about 20 minutes in, better known by the shortened version of her first name, Hannah, and her maiden name, Arendt. This is one of the most important political theorists of the 20th century, being interrogated by the Gestapo.
Jenny Lyn Bader’s 2019 play focuses on the eight days in 1933 Arendt spent in jail for photocopying the wrong newspaper articles in the Prussian State Library. Her excuse for spending so long in the archives: she was looking for a recipe for a pear torte.
The joy of this play is the interplay between Hannah and her interrogator, Karl, a newly promoted officer of the political police. She is so charming, so warm and judges her answers so perfectly, that he is completely disarmed.
Ella Kaille does a great job as Arendt, wearing her erudition lightly, passing off the incriminating details of her and her husband’s intellectual opposition to fascism with quicksilver sleights of hand. Brett Temple is her match as Karl, a young man too smart and humane to be on board with the Nazi project.
Director Ari Laura Kreith lets the actors keep their own American accents, which could be confusing to anyone who arrives at the theatre without doing their homework. She brings out all the subtleties of the pair’s interaction and shows how Arendt applies her theories on the banality of evil to winning over her guard.
Where this falls down is its lack of theatricality. The cast do little more than move around a static set with a disembodied door, occasionally moving the furniture or waving a pamphlet. As it stands it would be a wonderful radio play.
Mrs Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library is part of the Traverse Theatre’s Travfest 26 and performs until 30 August 2026. For further details, go to the theatre’s website.
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