The only way I can think to describe Jean-Phillipe Daguerre’s massive Parisian stage hit Farewell Mister Haffmann is as an unnatural collision of Schindler’s List and Indecent Proposal. Proof that the French really are a bewilderingly freaky people.
Joseph Haffman (Alex Waldmann) is the Jewish proprietor of a jewellery shop in Paris, 1942. He asks his trusted employee Pierre (Michael J Fox) if he might agree to take ownership of the business to protect it from the Germans, on the condition Joseph – whose wife and kids have escaped to Switzerland – is allowed to hide on the premises. Pierre makes a bizarre counter proposal: he is sterile, so asks that if he goes along with Joseph’s plan, might Joseph please boff his wholesome wife Isabelle (Jennifer Kirby) once a month until she’s pregnant?
Sorry to say that I found this so insane that I struggled to engage with the first hour of the play. The premise is maybe just about plausible, but the execution is totally loopy. Having suggested and brokered this convoluted sexual arrangement, Pierre falls apart the second Isabelle and Joseph do it, something bombastically accentuated in Oscar Toeman’s production by the moodily lit scenes of Pierre frenziedly tap dancing upstairs while the others are getting it on in the basement. For their part Waldmann’s Joseph and Kirby’s Isabelle approach their task with the elan of schoolchildren wearily cracking on with their homework – whether Joseph feels any guilt about cheating on his wife we never find out (although being French, possibly not).
It is decently acted but nonsense nonetheless. Until, in its final (and weirdest) twist, it becomes pretty good for the last half hour. For admittedly contrived reasons, Pierre has the German ambassador to Paris and his wife over to a dinner that Joseph unwisely invites himself to as well. Over an hour into the 100 minute play, seasoned actors Nigel Harman and Jemina Rooper pop out of wherever they’ve been hiding to star as Otto and his wife Suzanne and really shake things up for an exquisitely tense climactic scene. He is a politely chilling Nazi fanatic; she is puerile and inappropriate; our eyes are drawn to Waldmann’s patently out of his depth Joseph, willing him to survive this supper.
If it was staged in a bigger or fancier theatre, Farewell Mister Haffman’s ludicrous approach to human psychology would simply crumble under the scrutiny. As it is, the combination of small venue, strong final act and Harman and Hooper’s late arrival is just about enough to make it feel worthwhile, if not exactly credible. Most of whatever the French see in this has surely been lost in translation. But not quite everything.
