Based on a true story, the play won the 2007 Patrick White Playwrights’ Award, and yet, such is the parlous treatment of many local dramatists, is only now receiving its Australian premiere. While not devoid of flaws, it is well-crafted and, in the wife (Danielle King), it has a fascinating character whose morals are as fluid as her motives; a fundamentally good person hurled into a maelstrom where evil prospers.
That maelstrom is the dying months of World War II in Germany. Looking for berries, the wife finds a man in need (Barry French) and impulsively takes him home. Only when her husband (Gus Murray) rifles through the man’s wallet do they discover he’s a Jew.
If they are to shelter him they must hide him (hence the attic) but he must also pay his way. His skills as a jeweller and repairer are such that he becomes the household’s primary breadwinner; becomes indispensable, war or no war.