Joy Division

A Story by Abbie Huxham

Review of The London Theatre's production of the Joy Division by Harry Denford

As a commiseration to the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz the London Theater revived one of the most heart wrenchingly compelling plays of the last decade :the "Joy Division".

In the 70s and early 80s, the well-known Manchester band, Joy Division, took their name from events had nothing to do with joy. The name comes from forced labour camps in Nazi Germany. In these camps, thousands of young women, Polish Catholic mostly were used as sex slaves for German officers before they went to fight on the Russian front. They were also used by German guards in a odd logic that by providing a pretty women, it would stop the male camp guards from having any sexual urges towards the male Jewish and homosexual inmates. Many of these girls shared the same hatred of the Jews as the Nazi's, as they saw them as just having to wait on tables or just clean, not knowing what was really happening in other camps.

These young girls, known as ‘Feld Hure’ (Field W****s), underwent daily ‘enjoyment duty’ where three bad reports were met with brutal levels of punishment. And this is the premise on which the play is based on. The main question being, in such dire circumstances, do humans take solace in the companionship of others suffering the same fate? Or does an individual’s supposed submission give them greater dominance and a longer shelf life?

The play is based around a group of these women as who are trying to save an injured girl that they found in between huts. We learn about their personalities: the mother hen, the aristocrat, the Jewish girl and most importantly the anti-Semitic ex prostitute (played by Sophie Renée). The sub story is mainly between the leading character Lara , played by Sophie Renée, and the Jewish girl, Nadia . Sophie Renée transformed herself from the sweet “girl next door” type that I met at the stage door to a psychopathic, manipulative , sadistic Polish girl who tortures Nadia into admitting that she is Jewish. Miss Renée ,who does not exit the stage for more than 3 minutes through out the whole 1hour and 20 minute play, showed a goose bump portrayal from beginning to end. Her ability to transform her body and face into this complex and chilling character showed undeniable raw talent and technique that I have not witnessed in an actor since Anthony Hopkins in Hannibal. Furthermore her character ,Lara ,speaks with a Polish accent and had I not known that Sophie Renée was British born, I would have bet my life on her having a Polish accent in her everyday life.

The piece is also effective in drawing parallels between the Nazi sex slaves and modern day sex trafficking, as Sophie Renée in the last scene transforms the stage into a modern day brothel and sells the other girls as prostitutes to the audience �" which raises the question of how different are these women in our modern day brothers to the Nazi Sex slaves when it comes down to it?