Showing @ Pleasance Dome. Edinburgh until Mon 26 Aug (not 20) @ 13:30

In the years following WWII, Germany’s cities were filled with soldiers returning from hospitals and gulags, wandering through the rubble looking for the lives they’d lost. Out of this world came ‘rubble literature’, such as this play by Wolfgang Borchert which follows the odyssey of Sergeant Beckmann as he intersects with characters both real and fantastic, in a world as bizarre as Homer’s epic, if set under skies more lead than bronze.

Paapa Essiedu portrays Beckmann’s bewilderment and rage effectively and Invertigo’s other all-male cast members – taking on various roles from lovers and comrades to the impotent figure of god – show exceptional versatility. It’s easy to understand why the actors wanted to do this play. Its expressionist ideas give great scope for ‘performance’ and its anti-war message is clearly relevant, but stylistically it’s a play of its time; a museum piece that perhaps should have stayed there. Written in the aftermath of the war, the power of the text lies in its immediacy. Seventy years on, it’s difficult to replicate that power and so this show is primarily a well-produced theatrical cabinet of curiosities.