Although born in Manchester I come from a family of left-wing, argumentative Glaswegians, something I might have in common with playwright CP Taylor, who was in addition to those things, Jewish. I have some knowledge of the streets, background noise, language and mood that influenced his sensibilities, the politics that shaped some of his views. Good is a play that presents the grittiness of his politics as something polished. In it, Taylor uses every resource available to make his point. There is music, at odds on many occasions with dialogue, the problems of the young, the old and in the middle of it all a gigantic question. What would I have done? We are invited into the world of professor Halder, an academic whose problems have previously been limited to his ailing mother and incompetent wife. In her rally against the indignity of aging his mother produces a book advocating euthanasia. This is to prove the means of introducing Halder to the National Socialist Party and his journey throughout the play. The presence of power in Good is something that escalates and is flamboyantly shown as Halder forgoes his academic's tweeds for the foreboding uniform of an SS Officer. He forgoes his first wife for a younger and more competent woman who supports his rise through the ranks and provides no resistance to the mindset that allowed people of the time to believe that what they were doing was for the greater good. Halder is not a brave man. He seems to take the route of least resistance on many occasions especially in his failure to help his Jewish friend to leave Germany when he fears for his life. We see in this too much power ill-used and in the wrong hands. We see how destructive careless indifference and self-interest can be. There was much to absorb in this play and it was worth seeing. I did comment however that I thought its main points had been made elsewhere and more succinctly and that the piece was difficult to watch. David Denehey of our group, the High Priest of the natty remark, asked me if I thought I had over reached myself intellectually and might have been better off at home watching Downton Abbey. I laughed, in a polite way, but did spend worrying moments wondering if home viewing had blunted my appetite for harsh and thought provoking material. Our group found Good stimulating and relevant. The treatment of power in Nazi Germany was felt to have modern parallels and its messages about the vast flaws in people, especially the powerful, resonated long after the performance.
