The first pressing question of Who Is Claude Cahun? is how to pronounce that last name. Is it ‘Ca-hoon’ or ‘Cah-n’? In any case, Cahun was the assumed, neuter, identity of the artist born Lucy Schwob.
Identifying as neither male nor female, Cahun is shown as being belittled and neglected by a mother who ends up in an asylum, before meeting the woman she takes as professional and personal partner, and names Marcel Moore (born Suzanne Malherbe).
We first meet them living together in Jersey in 1940, a time of German occupation. They present to the public as sisters but find their unconventional dress and activities draw attention.
This product is suffused with the spirit of surrealism, with projected artwork (video design by Jeffrey Choy) and photographs of the real Cahun in a set (by Juliette Demoulin) that suggests masks and hidden identities.
DR Hill has written a play that tackles modern considerations about gender identity and wartime heroism from these two brave French patriots.
Rivkah Bunker’s performance is fixed on who Cahun is, and their single-mindedness about resistance to both military pressure and the expectations of what it is ‘to be a woman’.
In Amelia Armande’s Marcel, we see a softer, more caring approach to causing havoc on the island. We see the pair meeting in Paris, and also Lucy/Claude being patronised by major Surrealists Georges Bataille and André Breton.
In Jersey, a German captain and officer are in constant battle with what they believe to be a large network of anti-Nazi operatives, always one step behind.
Director David Furlong allows a small story to unfold within a large event, and entrance/exit and costume changes are handled well alongside location and date pointers.
The three remaining actors (Sharon Drain, Ben Bela Böhm, and Gethin Alderman) play 12 characters between them, all feeling fresh and fully defined.
This play is rather long at two hours, and I felt some scenes lacked the necessary dramatic heft to keep the interest. An opening scene involving Cahun, masked, also feels as if it adds little to the eventual story.
However, Who Is Claude Cahun? pays tribute to a person who followed their own path as a lesbian, a gender-fluid person, and a ‘resistance artist’. That she and Moore have a story few know is now addressed by this unusual stage production.
3.5 stars.
Who Is Claude Cahun? continues at Southwark Playhouse Borough until 12 Jul – details here.
Image credit: Paddy Gormley
Note: I reviewed the final preview by permission of the PR/producer.