The Courtyard Theatre, London N1
One of the fainter blips on the fringe radar is host to a terrific production of a remarkably confident debut by American writer Kate Fodor.
Central to her biographical work is the affair between two of Germany’s great 20th-century thinkers. One is Martin Heidegger, the philosopher who flourished under the Nazis, giving the barbarians a veneer of intellectual credibility. The other is Hannah Arendt, his Jewish student who would later carve her own formidable reputation.
The setting is Nuremberg, 1946 where Arendt, there to report on the war crimes trials, struggles to come to terms with the choices made by the mentor she loved. It may sound like an evening of dour theatre, but Fodor handles her weighty themes — none heavier than Arendt’s guilt by association — with a light touch.