My Dark Sky

Though geared towards schools audiences, Tim Nunn's illuminating history-based play My Dark Sky will be equally educational for adults whose knowledge of German history is incomplete.

Subtitled The White Rose Resistance to Hitler and the Holocaust, it tells the true story of siblings Hans and Sophie Scholl, and their friends Alexander Schmorell and Willi Graf, who co-ordinated underground protests against the Nazis while at university in Munich.

The playwright also designed this production, and the opening scene of shadowy figures stencilling 'freedom' on a wall is extremely effective. Unfortunately the set itself is incredibly noisy, and the heavy stomping of feet (combined with a great deal of coming and going through an unlocked door) is somewhat at odds with the fact that silence and secrecy were so crucial to the continuation of the movement.

The play successfully condenses weeks of activity into days, with leaflet printing, distribution and graffiti daubing taking place each night and studies neglected, but perhaps a little too much time is given to the debate over whether Sophie should be allowed to join the night-time missions.

While sibling spats and unrequited crushes might provide a reference point for young audiences, it's hard to imagine that these very serious young people had so much time to ponder their personal desires. That said, the ideological differences between Willi and Hans make for far less accessible theatre.

In the end it was a daytime activity - and apparently a spontaneous one - that led to the arrest of Sophie and Hans, and subsequently their collaborators. Nunn steers well clear of sentimentality in describing the grim fate of each character.

My Dark Sky is an effective little play about a very big subject, which focuses on the repression of the arts without ever losing sight of the bigger picture. While this may not be a must-see production, it's nonetheless a worthy tribute to the men and women of the White Rose, with a tremendous final scene.