Review: 12:37, Finborough Theatre

On one level 12:37 wants to ask pressing questions about Jewish nationalism; do the ends justify the means and so on. But Pascal's writing is so nebulous that it is stifles any ability to tell a basic story let alone answer major questions about self-identity and violence.

12:37 tells the story of Paul and Cecil, Jewish brothers raised in Ireland who stumble their way across history. They partake in the battle of Cable Street in 1936 and then the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1947. On paper it has so much potential. There is espionage and romance: John le Carré in Jerusalem. The spy who came in from the heat. But Julia Pascal's script fails in just about every way. From the imagery to the nuts and bolts of dialogue, it's incredible how quickly it crumbles.

Dialogue is about as fluid as dough and the central characters are grossly unlikable. One has a cloyingly irritating habit of breaking into song in every other sentence. The other is a grumpy male nymphomaniac who never skips an opportunity to exhibit his libido (the less said about the laughably awkward sex scene, accompanied by a dirge rendition of It's a Long Way to Tipperary, the better). Other characters randomly flitter in and out. The brothers' mother, set up as a key character in the beginning, inexplicably vanishes in the second half.

The heightened sexuality is probably in service to the play's cumbersome metaphor for the Arab-Israeli conflict. The brothers, who espouse differing views on Zionism, fight over Rina who is heavily suggested to symbolise Palestine. The more one thinks about it the more insulting it is in its crass simplification of complex geo-politics, and not to mention a little misogynistic. Talking of crass, Rina is a Holocaust survivor for no other reason than to give her something to brood over, a laughably absurd handling of cultural trauma in name of shoehorning in some emotional weight.

Pascal, who directs as well, has no sense of stagecraft. The stage is choked by a chaotic set; ladders, props, some of which aren't used, are strewn across the tight space choking the performers. The resulting static elongates already arduous exchanges; the passage of time itself seemed to warp as a result. It was two hours long, but it could have been twenty.

One feels immensely for the performers. They have a good stab at trying to inject their characters with warmth and depth. But there is only so much they can do when they are constrained literally and metaphorically by Pascal's ludicrously arduous writing and directing.

12:37 runs at the Finborough Theatre until 21 December

Photography Credit: Yaron Lapid.