Steve Furst, Debbie Chazen, Louisa Clein, Billy Ashcroft, Hemi Yeroham, Rachel-Leah Hosker
(Picture: Manuel Harlan)A sketchy history of antisemitic tropes mixed in with verbatim experiences of contemporary Jews, this isn’t really a play. It’s a muddled act of public contrition by the Royal Court for insensitive handling of an offensive gaffe last year. A greedy but non-Jewish billionaire character in Al Smith’s play Rare Earth Mettle was given the Jewish name Hershel Fink; early warnings that this might be prejudicial were ignored.
The Court belatedly but rightly scrambled to atone. An entertainment examining why liberal establishments “keep succumbing to this same prejudice”, was conceived by actress and writer Tracy-Ann Oberman, who (full disclosure) I know slightly, and who was viciously, antisemitically trolled for highlighting antisemitism allegations in the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn. The script has been assembled by journalist and novelist Jonathan Freedland. He’s never written for theatre, and it shows.
