'Address Unkown, by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor, Soho Theatre

‘Adressant Unbekannt. What a darkness those words carry! How can she be unknown? She has gone into some sort of void…’

Kathrine Kressmann Taylor’s 1938 novel ‘Address Unknown’ has long been one of the most uncelebrated pieces of World War Two Literature. Written on the eve of Nazi total rule, the novel follows a series of written exchanges between close friends Martin Schulse and Max Eisenstein: the latter a German Jew living in California, and Martin, his German business partner, residing in Berlin.

On stage, the distance between these two settings is achieved through the duplicated settings of two studies. The first, slightly more colourful and modern representing the evolving world of America, and the other darker, archaic and symptomatic of a panic-stricken struggling Germany in the early 1930s. Within the few meters of stage at the Soho Theatre, the plays set designer, Katie Lias, successfully represents the polar worlds straddling the Atlantic Ocean.

Ten minutes into the Steve Marmoin’s adaptation of the novel, the audience twitches; after the third verbal exchange of correspondence between Martin (Jonathan Cullen) and Max (Simon Kunz), there is a united doubt over what can be achieved with a script that shyly diverges very little from the original novel. This twitch, however, is swiftly replaced by a collective wince and stiffening after the mention of one odious name: Hitler. The play transforms…

What begun as letters of love, friendship and solidarity rapidly become those of disbelief, pride and hatred. After the revelation of Max’s missing relation in Berlin; the moment that gives the novel its title; the audience enters a moral abyss. As the they turns their heads from one side of the stage to another, the worlds of California and Nazi Germany become further and further apart. Transported to a world where moral righteousness is evaporated within one simple arm salute, Marmoin’s play is vibrant in its representation of betrayal.

Far from shocking in its conclusions, the play illuminates the power of Hitler’s ideology even before its most potent period. Cullen and Kunz present with full force the conflicts of Nazi Germany, and how the poisoning of friendships can take place through the simple acknowledgement of two sinister words: Adressant Unbekannt...