Traverse Theatre
Four stars
‘We are living in complicated times’ is a phrase that inevitably pops up in Jenny Lyn Bader’s dramatic speculation on what might have gone on in a prison cell in 1933 Germany. The real life occupant is the Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt, who finds herself arrested with her mother by the Gestapo and imprisoned for eight days after being accused of copying seemingly seditious literature in the library where she spent her days.
Hannah is arresting officer Karl’s first catch since he was promoted from the criminal police to the political police, and is keen to show who is boss. He may be out of his depth intellectually, but he’s not stupid enough to realise Hannah is being fitted up. With Hannah also receiving a visit from lawyer Erich, in a world where peaceful protest is a crime and certain library books are verboten, she has clearly become a marked woman.
Ari Laura Kreith’s production is an intense affair played out on Lauren Helpern’s open plan stage design in a way that allows the characters to skirt around each other with a suspicious line of inquiry that eventually leads to an uneasy truce.
While Drew Hirshfield lends Erich a breezy confidence, Brett Temple invests Karl with a wet behind the ears naïveté. He may have a crush on Hannah, but he also saves her life. At the centre of all this is Hannah herself, played by Ella Kaille with a low key determination that points up her intellectual line of inquiry that is as complex as the times. Of course, it could never happen here, but coming out of an increasingly polarised America, Bader’s play is an incisive and refreshingly intelligent meeting of minds.
Until 30 Aug, various times.
The Herald, August 14, 2026
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