The Investigation @ ZOO Southside

Physical theatre meets Documentary

Feature by Lizzie Stewart | 21 Aug 2011

Inexplicably, this years Fringe abounds with Hitlers. We have Hitler! The Musical, Paul Webster’s Hitler Alone, Adolf by Pip Utton, and even the cheerily titled Leave Hitler To Me Lad! All Hitler and no Holocaust makes for a strangely distorted view of history, however, and so hats off to 3Bugs theatre company for bringing Peter Weiss’s The Investigation up to Edinburgh this year.

For those of you unfamiliar with the play, be prepared: this is heavy stuff. Based on the documentation of the German Auschwitz trials in the 1960s, the script consists mainly of witness statements by Holocaust survivors and the accused’s chilling defence of their actions, revealing the Holocaust as a system carried out by average people: the crime of a whole society, rather than just one man.

Rather than attempting to create a realistic courtroom scene, university theatre group 3Bugs use physical theatre and minimal props to illustrate the scenes and experiences described. While this works well as an idea when it comes to catching the way in which memory moves from courtroom to camp, from witness documentation to actor, some of the action – the frantic chalking on the blackboards, for example – seems gratuitous and slightly distracting. Equally the acting is earnest and energetic, if overly emotive at times. Texts as strong as those of The Investigation speak for themselves though: hearing them aloud, it is still impossible to remain unaffected.

Until 29 Aug, 21.00

ZOO Southside

http://www.zoofestival.co.uk