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Based on Eddie Jaku’s memoir of the same name, The Happiest Man on Earth may not be imaginative – but it is important. Summary
Rating
Excellent
When Eddie Jaku (Kenneth Tigar) laughs, he does not recognise the sound coming out of his mouth; this is because it has been so many years since he last heard it.
Based on the best-selling memoir of the same name, The Happiest Man on Earth tells the life-story of Holocaust survivor Eddie Jaku. Tigar takes our protagonist from the boarding school where he was enrolled under a fake ‘gentile’ name, all the way to the Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps from which he attempted (with varying degrees of success) to escape.
Adapted for the stage by Mark St Germain, this play depicts Jaku’s life in harsh, but necessary, detail. We are told that prisoners were forced to sleep naked to stop them fleeing the camps and that, as a result, many would freeze to death each night. We learn that Jaku’s parents have been gassed when a Nazi guard points to a plume of smoke in the sky and informs Eddie that this is where he will find his mother, should he be looking for her. And we are reminded that by the end of the war, 6 million European Jews had been murdered. Tigar delivers his lines in a pragmatic manner throughout. He’s not here to upset us; he just wants us to sit up and pay attention, his quiet performance suggests. This is not supposed to be gratuitous. This is just how it happened. This is the truth.
The only trouble with a show like this one is that it can be tricky to separate the quality of story from the quality of its execution. In other words, it is hard to tell whether we are captivated by the production itself, or by the extraordinary information that it relays. It’s probably fair to say that there is nothing striking about Tigar’s performance: it is energetically purposeful, but a few emotional beats are missed and we are sometimes rushed past plot points at which we might like to linger for a while. There is likewise little to say about the production’s design. James Noone’s wooden backdrop doesn’t pull any interesting tricks, and Harold Burgess’ sound and lighting come into play with only minor significance.
But then again, in highlighting these flaws I may well be missing the point. Because the purpose of The Happiest Man on Earth is not to impress to us with theatricality, but rather to convey a message; one that needs no bells and whistles. No matter how dark things get, Jaku’s tale schools us: we have a duty to seek the light. Happiness is “a choice” – and if a man who has gone to hell and back again can uphold such a belief, we have a responsibility to do so ourselves.
In the wake of the US election, stories like Jaku’s – in which a powerful, persuasive leader encourages an entire nation to become the very worst version of itself – should be told loud and often, for all to hear. We must remind ourselves what we were once capable of, and of what we may be capable again. Perhaps then all some stages need is a story, someone to tell it, and someone to listen. Measured against these yardsticks, The Happiest Man on Earth does very well indeed.
Adapted by: Mark St Germain
Directed by: Ron Lagomarsino
Starring: Kenneth Tigar
Set design by: James Noone
Lighting design by: Harold Burgess
The Happiest Man on Earth plays at Southwark Playhouse Borough until Saturday 14th December. Further information and booking details can be found here.
