It is Christmas Eve. A thirty-something couple and their (unseen) daughter are getting ready to celebrate the big day.

Filmmaker Bettina and her author husband, Albert, are not happy. And the arrival of Bettina’s mother, Corinna, only exacerbates their disconnect with one another. To make matters worse, Corinna has met a man, Rudolf, on her train journey, and has invited him along to the family Christmas.

German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig’s play is clever on many levels. Most keenly it illustrates how easily fascism can slip under the door, seducing unwary mindsets with its nationalistic appeal, seductive old school concepts of chivalry and faux arguments about natural law, art and entitlement. Exploring the vanities, self-interest, and ennui of a liberal-minded establishment, Schimmelpfennig illustrates the fragility of resistance to a resurgent far right in Germany, now polling around 15 percent of the national vote.

This production is particularly blessed with an excellent cast from the Orange Tree and Actors Touring Company. The play, at just under two hours long without a break, could have suffered from a drop in pace – not here – although the play itself could have benefitted from some editing. This co-production, originally directed by Ramin Gray, latterly by Alice Malin, was always edgy and often fun to watch on Lizzie Clachan’s stark set of four tables, five wheeled chairs and an assortment of small idiosyncratic props, under, for the most part, full and flat lighting. As if in rehearsal, the actors interspersed their dialogue with stage directions and the inner thoughts of the protagonists, giving the audience additional layers of engagement.

The irascible nature of Albert (Felix Hayes) and Bettina’s (Kirsty Besterman) relationship simmered nicely throughout this performance, though Hayes’s booming bass voice seemed sometimes at odds with Albert’s supine attitude to all around him. Bettina’s mum Corinna (Marian McLoughlin) flirted convincingly as her new ‘friend’, Rudolf, dazzled with his prowess on the piano and his pronouncements on the arts and life. Later, Konrad (Gerald Kyd), an impoverished artist racked with self-doubt, with a picture on one of Albert and Bettina’s walls and designs on Bettina herself, joins the party. Albert, meanwhile, is in clandestine mobile conversations with a female work colleague.

The tension builds well as Albert and Bettina recognise Rudolph’s true nature, but find themselves unable to confront him, being more absorbed in their own insecurities. Rudolph seizes his chance to expound, unfettered. Brilliantly portrayed by David Beames as a cultured man, a doctor, his warped beliefs about purity in nature condoning the liquidation of ‘lesser beings’ are aired unquestioned. Having captivated the unloved Corinna and the unprincipled Konrad with his talk of pride in motherhood and the torch-like power of the paintbrush, Albert and Bettina are left to struggle with their own reticence to call him out.

In some extraordinary scenes near the close, confrontation is imagined rather than executed, leaving Rudolph as the cuckoo in the nest during (almost) the longest night of the year.    ★★★★☆   Simon Bishop    1^st March 2018