Gitta Sereny's In Quest of Conscience is a suitably dark character portrait that's a little too cluttered for Naima Khan.
At first, Gitta Sereny looks like iron as she waits for Franz Stangl, ex-commandant of Treblinka extermination camp. In Quest of Conscience is the dramatisation of her interview with the former Nazi and it's a disturbing relay of questions and answers. Its strengths lie in its simplicity, which at times is lost as the many voices that Robert David MacDonald lets into this modest play are not depicted with enough individuality. Nonetheless, Phillipa Peak and Martin Buchan make a compelling pair as the leads who present a sobering conversation lead by a slow, rumbling distrust that occasionally bursts uncontrollably with emotion. But when Stangl loses it, he couldn't be more different to Sereny.
Played with canny detail by Peak, she makes the interviewer as much a compelling character as the interviewee, despite comparatively fewer lines. She wears a look of intense concentration but permits herself flashes of nervousness and the odd, unexpected, teary-eyed moment. Sereny begins by explaining that she hopes to gain a better understanding of what happened and at first it seems like she's going to psychoanalyse him. But as Stangl details his experiences at Treblinka and other camps, she asks a few simple how, when, where questions, occasionally calls him on his contradictions and asks bluntly why. We never see her try to draw conclusion and it's in these simpler scenes that the script is at its best.
But MacDonald's script calls for multiple extra characters and we hear from Stangl's wife, prisoners, and his fellow high-ranking Nazis, including Odilo Globocnik and Franz Suchomel. Their comments highlight the contradictions in Stangl's statement and help to appease the audience when Sereny asks after the prisoners Stangl liked, and he replies “I don't know”. They fill us in on some more disturbing detail and help construct Stangl's image, but in this production, they aren't as distinct as they need to be. We find ourselves listening to a lot of people without being sure who's who. If you're not fussed about who the commentary is from, you can take it as what it is, a little extra, like the frame on a painting, but it can also be really irritating.
There is however, an unforgettable performance in this play. In Buchan's hands, Strangl is profoundly challenging to watch, but completely absorbing at the same time. He cries remembering his happy days teaching the zither and we recoil at this pathetic old man. Then, leaving us open-mouthed, he is horribly matter of fact and disturbingly proud of himself for the things he did in Treblinka. In two hours, MacDonald's script, directed by Rachel Heyburn, draws two very distinct characters on a very dark, if occasionally messy, background.
Gitta Sereny's In Quest of Conscience runs at Finborough Theatre until 27th June.
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