There is no more compelling or politically significant drama in town than Ryan Craig's What We Did to Weinstein. Nothing matches its scope or ambition. Craig writes with psychological astuteness about Jews and Arabs caught in the close bind of hatred and guilt.
His play, a black comedy of dubious morals and Jewish manners, is framed in the perspective and memories of Josh Cohen's Joshua, an idealistic Israeli soldier of British origin, questioned in custody for how he dealt with a fearless Palestinian terrorist suspect (Pushpinder Chani).
It commutes between west London and the West Bank, darting backwards and forwards in time between 1994 and 2002. It forcefully dramatises the conflicts of two generations of Jews in London, their divergent attitudes to the state of Israel and the Palestinians. It discovers marked spiritual affinities between young Muslims and Jews who reject materialistic society and feel out of place in England.
Mike Leigh's Two Thousand Years at the National Theatre, enjoying months of rehearsals and a budget surely running to hundreds of thousands, also deals with notions of Jewishness.Yet, in comparison with What We Did to Weinstein at the unsubsidised Chocolate Factory, it seems mere soap opera.
Tim Supple's spare production needs a non-realistic lighting design to emphasise the play's leaps of memory and time, yet it simmers with the right tension and rueful comedy. Josh's dying writer-father (Harry Towb) and his agent (Leonard Fenton) are as divided in their views about Israel as Josh and his former journalist girl-friend Sara (Miranda Pleasence) are about the treatment of the Palestinians.
What We Did to Weinstein fascinates because it reflects the complex passions of Jews in more than two minds about what Jewishness entails.
Until 12 November. Information: 020 7907 7060.
What We Did To Weinstein