a small and quiet light
Minerva Theatre, Chichester
Stephanie Sweet
Directed by Elin Schofield
Star rating: 2
The story of Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan should be better known. A woman of Indian heritage with roots in France she was secretly flown into occupied France in 1942 with a brief to radio intelligence back to Britian. Brave, resolute and resourceful she was eventually betrayed to the Nazis and sent to Dachau where she was probably abused and beaten before being shot. This is the true story which Stephanie Sweet’s play dramatises.
Priyanga Burford who plays Noor has been involved in this project from its inception having first encountered the story and taken it to Sweet. She is listed as “consultant producer”. It’s her fine, evocative, moving acting which stands out, though. She shifts instantly from dogged determination to cheerful flirtation: her fairly gentle interrogation by Vogt (Caoilfhionn Duune) acts as an anchor point for three quarters of the play. She is also very good at showing terror, mostly with her expressive face.
The rest of the cast (six of them) are competent enough at what they do but the multi-roling pushes the suspension of disbelief too far and detracts from the clarity of the story telling. And, although I appreciate that the role of women in World War Two has not been foregrounded enough, the decision to do this play with an all-female cast is a strange one because several of the characters are, obviously, male. In places it feels like a fairly impressive end-of-term play in a girls’ school. It’s a gesture which falls flat and certainly doesn’t help with narrative clarity.
The play ranges over time and refers back to Noor’s childhood. Her young self is played by Kiah Arya (good) who plays on-stage piano because, apparently, Noor was an amateur pianist – except at times when, for no apparent reason, Burford plays her character as a child. There’s a recurrent Chopin theme – played on piano and then reiterated in various ways in composer Nicola T Chang’s sound track. It’s cleverly done although beyond stressing that Noor was a multi-faceted, cultured woman, it doesn’t add much.
One of the best moments in the play is the end of Act One when Noor leaves England, flown out from RAF Tangmere which is three miles from Chichester. The all around-sound of the aircraft and the runway lights are splendid.
Generally speaking Act Two is tighter and better than Act One although the ending is bitty. There’s a rather powerful monologue by Burford but after that is gets feels awkward and you have the sense that Sweet didn’t quite know how to get the information across and bring her play to a dramatic conclusion.
Two further minor points. First, the cigarette stage business should be cut. It’s years since I’ve seen an actor smoking on stage with conviction. Most of them simply don’t know how to do it any more. Burford clearly wants nothing to do with it anyway. Twice her character accepts a cigarette but doesn’t light or smoke it. And second, what, for goodness sake, is the point of the uncapitalised title?
