Robert (Alastair Kirton) stares, transfixed, at a painting in a provincial German gallery. Chivvying him along as closing time comes and goes is gallery assistant, Berta (Chloe Gilgallon) who soon learns that her love of the painting is shared by Robert, but for very different reasons.
Restitution (at the
Kings Head Theatre until 1 April) explores what happens when Robert considers this work of art as not just his only link to a family all but wiped out in the death camps (as if that wasn't enough), but also his painting, his past, his inheritance and therefore his to use as he sees fit. Berta, initially sympathetic, realises that Robert's intentions are such that the painting (now owned by her mother) will be lost from her gallery - probably from public view altogether - and resists. Inspired by a BBC documentary made by David Baddiel (whose family's brick factory was destroyed by Nazis), Emily Juniper's two-hander sets decent, honest people on either side of the dilemma of what to do about art acquired illegally in pursuit of genocide and then sold in good faith to unsuspecting collectors.
Both young actors are completely believable in their roles - we warm to them, but it's not a surprise when both turn to more cynical approaches to protect what is "theirs". Director Julia McShane sensibly declines to break the action with an interval, but the digression into the myth of Hero (the subject of the painting) dilutes the tension and might be dispensed with, especially if the painting were back-projected or shown in some other way. Emily Juniper's writing is serious and engaging, if possibly more suited to the claustrophobic intimacy of a radio play than a stage production.
Restitution's central issue is no abstract dramatic device, but a live problem today and not confined to works of art - life insurance policies, Swiss bank accounts and other looted and destroyed materials from World War II, many in now public ownership, are being pursued by the descendants of those who died in the genocide. There's also movements in other parts of the world to seek reparations for slavery, and for intense political conflict over land reform in post-colonial Africa. It is to the credit of everyone involved in this production that these big, complex and often harrowing issues have been distilled into a play that respects different positions and avoids glib answers. I am glad that I saw it and even more pleased that my teenage son saw it with me.
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