Arts Council England takes money from almost all of us and spends it on culture for almost none of us. Among its clique of favoured writers is Ella Hickson whose work has twice been staged at the subsidised Almeida. Her first effort was a historical sketch show about oil-drilling, the second looked at the problem of elderly gropers who commission scripts from vulnerable tragediennes We have the NT to thank for her latest, Anna, a title that’s unlikely to set the pulse of theatreland racing.
Viewers take their seats and are asked to don headpieces. The stage is shielded from the auditorium by a soundproof membrane of glass that stays in place during the action. Listening to the dialogue through headphones makes us feel like secret policemen monitoring a bugged apartment. This suits the drama, which is set in east Berlin, 1968, where a technocrat named Hans is throwing a party to celebrate his promotion to deputy manager of a widget factory. Lots of people show up, some uninvited. A needy neighbour arrives whose husband has just been snatched and possibly shot dead by the Stasi. There’s a sinister doctor prescribing knockout pills disguised as pick-me-ups. An indignant athlete complains that his career has been ruined by East Germany’s culture of doping. His wife is a flirty youngster who catches the eye of a gropy old perv. It’s a busy night. The soundtrack is highly effective as it transports us behind the scenes and invites us to lean in and listen to scared characters gossiping in panicked whispers about their fellow guests.
The central dilemma concerns Hans’s wife, Anna, who recognises the factory director, Christian, as a leading member of the party. Christian was, according to Anna, the very swine who in 1945 betrayed her mum to the invading Russians and received a packet of cigarettes as his reward.
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