Who Is Claude Cahun?

A play that has the opportunity to bring a little known, but the extremely important true-life story of Claude Cahun, to the attention of audiences today, should create a dramatic and intriguing two hours. However, what plays out is muddled and never really seems to know what it wants to be. Writer D.R. Hill has attempted to explain the entire life history and in doing so misses the opportunity to dwell on any particularly important and unique aspects of the central character’s life and more importantly the deep love of her lifetime partner. With scenes crammed with so much expositional language we are told rather than shown what should be at the heart of this play.

Born Lucy Schwob after an incredibly difficult childhood with an abusive homophobic mother and an ineffectual father at 15 she meets and falls in love with Suzanne Malherbe and together they immerse themselves in the surrealist movement in Paris. Here Lucy discovers her talent as an artist/ performer and Suzanne as her photographer. Together they change their names to Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore as expressions of their innermost selves. With Claude being Jewish lesbian or what we now possibly describe as gender fluid they flee the oncoming Nazi regime to the island of Jersey only to then be forced to hide themselves as sisters when the island is occupied by the Germans. As these two central characters Rivkah Bunker (Claude) and Amelia Armande (Marcel) are not given the chance with the script or David Furlong’s direction to properly flesh out their roles and any emotion feels sadly all too superficial.

Playing all the other characters Sharon Drain, Ben Bela Bohm and Gethin Alderman are strangely enough given more opportunity to ignite their supporting roles and add much to the humour and the pathos of the play.

The second Act feels more controlled and engaging, at odds with the frenetic first. Here the story becomes centred on Claude and Marcel’s struggle for concealment, their exposure, trial, and finally their sentencing and last-minute reprieve. But without establishing their deep love for each other their fates are less moving than they could and should have been. With today’s transphobia this play should have resonated more but didn’t achieve that.

The production does benefit from some transformative video design by Jeffrey Choy where the real photographs of the costumed Claude and surreal art collages adorn the walls of Juliette Demoulin’s set. When used that add depth and are more successful than the script at showing the truth and the turmoil.

This feels very much like an opportunity missed. So, with the tag line ‘But what is your identity as a Jewish Lesbian in Nazi occupied Jersey’ that statement is very much left unanswered.

Photo credit: Paddy Gormley

Two stars.