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Review: Theatre, The New Vintage: Farewell, Mr. Haffman Makes Going to The Theatre Popular Again
- saveurmedia
- Mar 25
- 12 min read
Running Time: Wed 5 Mar – Sat 12 Apr
Post pandemic we find ourselves caught in a web of virtual reality, AI, social media and living life digitally. So I was a bit surprised in my recent trips to the theatre to see sold out shows. It made me wonder if going to the theatre, an act that was once the highlight of the social season now making a comeback? Could going to the theatre be considered vintage now? After being locked in learning a series of TikTok dances and new recipes many of us felt happy to be spending time in the homes we work so hard to pay for but there was always something missing. Personally, the theatre for me is similar to virtual reality. You find yourself transported into a space where the actors' emotions transcend the stage and strike the audience as well. On my latest trip to the theatre I went to see ‘Farewell, Mr. Hoffman’. A play made famous in France and the winner of four Molière Awards also remade as a film has come to London’s Park Theatre.
By Jean-Phillipe Daguerre, Adapted by Jeremy Sams, Directed by Oscar Toeman the play stars Downton Abbey’s Michael Fox as Pierre Vigneau, East Enders Nigel Harman as Otto Abetz, Call The Midwife’s Jennifer Kirby as Isabelle Vigneau, The Black Dahlia’s Jemima Rooper as Suzanne Abetz and helmed as one of Britain's most prolific classical actors Alex Waldmann who plays Joseph Haffman.
Photo Credit: IMDB
The play is set in 1942 Nazi-occupied Paris, as jews are being imprisoned in concentration camps jeweller Joseph Haffman creates an unconventional deal with his employee Pierre Vigneau to transfer ownership of his jewellery store on the condition that Pierre hides him in the basement of the store from the Nazi’s. Joseph is determined to survive and to one day see his family again whilst Pierre and Isabelle dream of starting their own family in occupied Paris. Historical figures featured or mentioned in the play are Otto Abetz (1903-1958) the German diplomat and Nazi official, who served as the German Ambassador to Vichy France and Paul Rosenberg (1881-1959) a prominent Jewish French Art Dealer who’s collection contained works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Georges Braque.
Whilst some may argue that this is another Holocaust production I would argue that it is wider than that. What I mean is, this is a play that can be resonated with by any human being on the planet with or without a connection to the Holocaust. This piece is something I’d classify as auto-fiction. It’s not based on actual events, but it uses real people in order to tell the story. The London production also changes elements of the original play to tell the story at a faster pace. We sat down with Michael Fox and Alex Waldmann after the play at the spacious bar above the theatre to get more insight into how these actors prepared to tell these stories.
“I think you can never judge your character as an actor. Also, you can't preempt where he might go. Especially, with a character like Pierre…” - Michael Fox
Q&A WITH THE ACTORS:
MICHAEL FOX & ALEX WALDMANN
Q by Roman Pantaleion) I mean, this is a very emotional and probably traumatising thing to have to experience or portray. I would like to know how you two prepared for your roles?
Michael) Well, I think it's interesting, so Jen, Alex and I are all parents; so I think there's something about this play that there's a kind of parental element to the play. Understanding the need to have a child or a longing for family feels very close to me personally. I think that element is not quite easy to connect to. The thing that's difficult to connect to in this play is the absurdity of it and the speed in which it escalates.
Alex) For me, I'm born Jewish; but I don't practice, I'm very fortunate I get to play lots of Jewish roles. But, I'm learning about Judaism each time I do a role, so I think for me the hardest part is the leap to someone even beginning to try and get in the frame of mind of what it must have been like living, knowing there's people just outside the door that want you dead. I think you try and do all that work in rehearsal, so when you come out on stage you just feels like you, even though you've done all the work in rehearsal so it just feels like me, Michael and Jen. You just want to be open to the audience and to know what's going on and listen, and to see what comes out each night.
Like Michael says, this play is sort of totally preposterous. Like that would never happen in real life, and you'd never [REDACTED SPOILER]. But I love the fact that if you can't imagine it on stage creatively, where can you imagine it? So it's just the writers sort of found the most extreme things that any human being can be put through, shoved it all together, and then I think that makes a really fun evening in the theatre. But it's not not meant to be a real historical holocaust drama. It's meant to be extreme. Yeah, you could say today you could set [this] in different parts of the world, but I think it's just he's [director] found what's the most extreme. Put them all together and people have to just take that leap of faith but it's all kind of absurd and you enjoy the ride. I think certainly for me, I try to do all the traumatic stuff in rehearsal. The things that move me every night when you learn about [REDACTED SPOILER]. I never have to act that.
Q by Alex Ibrahim) What research went into preparing? So it's like obviously you're not gonna just play the role straight away.
Michael) You want to understand the history. Like how do you build that understanding, the history? Then you put Otto Abetz and his wife who are based on real life [people] whereas Joseph, Pierre and Isabel aren't. It's this kind of crazy mix of real life people imagining, and then we're sort of amalgamations of people that might have been alive. I did a history degree way back. I love the research part of it. I love finding out about occupied Paris looking at the pictures, looking at the bones and trying to understand the context. But you can't, you can't play any of that. You just have to absorb it and then know that it's there and hopefully that it makes our empty stage feel more full with the awareness of what's going on outside. So I think that any research you take on board, you absorb it and then you forget about it. But I always find that stuff fascinating,
Alex) Yeah, it's exactly that. It's like you wanna feel like you know the world. The main thing about this player is they're trying to work against that feeling, so the problem is just outside the door, the danger is just outside and it's getting closer and closer. There's ways of finding lightness within this kind of uniquely dangerous, absurd situation.
So I think for us who are trying to find what is the kind of human response despite this danger, is the endeavour to try and find the solution, find the positive, keep the likeness against that. We don't just naturally wave through this stuff. So I guess going back to the question is like having all of us and then trying to do your best to pretend it's not happening is the trip, I think. making it feel human and making it feel more real.
Q by Shira Amselem) Why do you think that this story was important?
Michael) I think actually it's interesting because the context is clear and it's a play where a Jewish man is the heart, but it actually feels like a play that is so much about the lengths people go to in extreme pressure. Those bigger parts that connect with audiences, it feels like we can't be in control of us or the bigger themes of the play. It's like, who is this person, one person in state, one story, one character? All you can do is honour that, and then an audience will make those collective answers.
Alex) I'm not a huge fan of plays that want to tell people what to think. I like for each person to come away with what they've found that resonated with them, and so, potentially the people that are Jewish, there might be certain things that really resonate [with them], and then for people that are really trying for a baby that might resonate with them.
I think the thing is that you wanna sort of tell a story and how people have a good time and feel moved and challenged, all those things, but to everyone take away their own thing, feel what they felt resonated with them, and that's going to be different rather than saying this is the message.
Q by Nerea Fernandes) Did you get any inspiration from the film? How did that translate to set design?
Michael) Yeah, actually-- I haven’t seen the film...
Alex) Neither have I.
Michael) ... There's elements of it they took out of the play, so I think the [Spoiler]. So we did have film references, such as JoJo Rabbit and Inglorious Bastards where we're in the world but it's a heightened version of the world. It can still remain a slightly lightened space, I think. So that was helpful for me. I just like having the kind of immediate imagery of like Inglorious Bastards I kinda know what that is. It's a different experience. Also in terms of the Bath version, there was a Bath version that was on four years ago and I deliberately didn't watch it. I don't really like having loads of references because I want to just feel like what it is in the room. On the day.
Alex) I downloaded the film, but I haven't gotten around to watching it. Now that we're open I might watch it. I think it's gonna be quite different, but it's the combination of a creative team and actors that make each production unique. On YouTube, there's a video of a French production, so it's one of the most successful plays in France and it's run for 10 years or something. [It’s] won Molière awards and people keep wanting to go and see it. There's [the French version] is very different of course, quite stylised, but we couldn't do that over here, and because our characters are unique. I'm a few years younger than the actor of the play in Bath, which gave it a distinctly different feel. So mine would only exist because of the people that you're on stage with, because of what Michael does and you build those characters around the other actors you're on stage with, which is what makes it unique. I did watch a bit of the Bath version. It reconfirms why we've done it our way and that they did their play their way and it's just very different ways. And that's okay. The same play can be done [differently] like in Hamlet, any of you speaking Hamlet lines would sound different because it would come from you and that's what's great.
Q by Roman Pantaleion) What techniques did you guys train in or do you prefer, and what are three objectives you made for your character?
Michael) My training was central, So it was Michael Chekhov, it's more a physical training into a psychological Clowning about and trying to get out of your head, basically. That was my training. Objective: I think changes through the play, to have a baby, to make his wife happier; his whole thing is Isabel's happiness, and I think if I hold on to that, that seems to carry me through the play. I think he gets indoctrinated and his objective becomes to finally get what he deserves. “I deserve this. I've been overlooked for too long and finally I’m gonna be somebody”, and he gets a little bit, you know, drunk on that feeling.
Alex) I trained at LAMDA, but my big mentor was after training. A company called Cheek by Jowl so it's a director Declan Donnellan (and he wrote)... for anyone involved or interest in acting a book called ‘The Actor and the Target’ and he’s written another book called ‘The Actor in the Space’ and his whole approach is that everything you need when you're acting is outside of you. Everything I need in a scene, all the information I need in a scene is in Michael [Fox] or in Jen [Jennifer Kirby] or in Nigel [Harman] or Jemima [Rooper]. It’s that you don't have to feel any responsibility to generate emotion. It's like responding to the news. All the information, the thoughts, everything comes from outside of you rather than inside.
Michael) So it helps to get out of your head...
Alex) ... Yeah, it helps you be less self conscious, it's just about listening and responding. And I think like Michael said, I think he starts off the play thinking his big objective is just to get his family name back onto the shop and just survive, but he doesn't know it could be two weeks, it could be two months, but by the end of the play I think he learns that money isn't everything. The way we're playing is that he's learned that because I think if you ask him before the war, he would have said money is really important, but then he learns that money [isn’t important]. In our version he just wants to be reunited with his family, that's all that's important. I think his [objectives] changes, but yeah, I think it starts as one thing and then ends up being [his family]. That's what drives him. getting to meet them again.
Q by Roman Pantaleion) Do you guys prefer Theatre, TV or film acting?
Michael) I definitely prefer theatre, 100%.
Alex) Theatre.
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