Review: 1936, Arcola Theatre

Written for the Financial Times

With little over two years until London 2012 gets under way, Tom McNab’s engaging dramatisation of events preceding the 1936 Berlin Olympics provides a reminder of the inevitable invasion of politics into the sporting arena. That it’s playing at the Arcola Theatre in Hackney, one of five London boroughs set for rejuvenation in the process, gives it added pertinence.

McNab focuses on Hitler’s determination to flex the muscles of his Third Reich with the grandest Games to date. Having been convinced of their utility by Joseph Goebbels, who was himself persuaded by his mistress, Hitler demanded 100,000 seats and 30 gold medals. (Goebbels would deliver 110,000 and 33 respectively.) What went unanticipated was the threat of a US boycott, spearheaded by Judge Jeremiah Mahoney, on account of the expulsion of German Jews from the country’s sports clubs.

Here 1936 draws a smart parallel with the discrimination against black athletes in the US. Jesse Owens, who would famously go on to win four golds in Berlin, trains alone, denied the sports scholarship that should have been his due. His unswerving determination to compete is twinned with that of Gretel Bergmann, the Jewish high-jumper who, despite equalling the national record a month previously, found herself excluded from the German squad.

While McNab achieves a sharp 90 minutes from fascinating subject matter, he pays the price of over-simplification, sacrificing interrogation for intelligibility. His tendency towards soundbites coupled with the employment of a well-positioned, honourable narrator – William Shirer, an idealistic American journalist – gives 1936 a neatness that undermines its putative claim to historical accuracy.

Occasionally, the need for explication causes McNab to stray into improbability. Thus Goebbels has difficulty in persuading Hitler of the benefits of hosting the Olympics – but would the Führer really fail to recognise the Games’ propaganda potential, let alone that of the rings that symbolise them? Further, to accept the play’s final hypothesis that the rescinded boycott might have averted the second world war is a triple jump too far.

Jenny Lee’s unfussy direction brings great clarity, easily negotiating the vastness of events portrayed. For the most part, the strong cast tackle multiple roles without relying on caricature, but Tim Frances and Chris Myles can’t quite match the challenge of Hitler and Goebbels, who seem almost a drolly mismatched odd couple.