White Rose: The Musical at Marylebone Theatre

When it comes to depicting the Holocaust onstage or onscreen, there is hardly a shortage of options from which to choose. From the classroom-friendly, fable-like didacticism of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas to the arts and audience-indicting, anti-musical satire of Cabaret, art has made innumerable attempts to answer the call of just how to depict atrocity and, indeed, how to subvert and even weaponize the inevitable normalisation of the subject through its depiction. The very fact that a catalogue extensive enough to comprise a full Holocaust subgenre of historical fiction can be credibly cited is, perhaps, troubling in itself. To dramatise mass-scaled human tragedy is, in theory, to demand reflection and awareness of an ugly subject. In execution, it is also to risk inflicting palatability and digestibility on what ought to remain unconscionable. Equally as persistent as the large cultural shadow cast by Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List is the debate as to whether its skilful wrangling of a measure of uplift from the Holocaust is a worthy spotlight on a little told story or a crass act of commercial sanitisation.

Naturally, with the capacity for mass complicity in a rising tide of global fascism very much on the mind once again, one can rest assured that people’s attempts to bring these stories to life will continue, as well as questions of the efficacy and ethical rigour of their telling. Hurling itself enthusiastically into the fray, creator and lyricist Brian Belding and director Will Nunziata’s White Rose: The Musical aims to tackle the true-life tale of a student resistance group comprised of five students and a lone professor (respectively played by Collette Guitart, Tobias Turley, Owen Arkrow, Danny Whelan and Mark Wilshire), whose anonymous calls for resistance against Hitler’s regime would come to be brutally stamped out. It’s as worthy a subject as its unironic, unabashed presentation through the lens of pop-rock musical melodrama is questionable and, occasionally, even galling.

One can see Belding, Nunziata, composer Natalie Brice and co being swept up in the plucky, against-the-odds do-gooder spirit of the young White Roses, and they have resolved themselves upon the not ignoble goal of unearthing the defiant humanitarian uplift in the ultimately tragic story of these defiant young intellectuals. It’s anti-fascist resistance filtered through a “Let’s put on a show!” adventure assembling distinct, often volatile personalities in pursuit of a lone, righteous goal. However, in this case, form not only does not service function but is in active and unproductive conflict with it. Every scene in the play proceeds in the same straight line towards song and dance (and thrumming, electric guitar-heavy instrumentation that often leaves the cast shout-singing to be heard), as if each moment of despair and traumatised reflection were merely a nail on its way to meet a peppy number’s hammer. There is an endearing cornball sincerity to some of Belding’s lyrics (“When I fell for the speeches, who could’ve known they were liars and leeches?!”), but the songs do little to electrify the play’s sketchy dramatic foundations, just as Belding’s book offers only the thinnest dramatic ballast to the songs. At all moments, White Rose is pitched at the same level of emphatic, vaguely inspirational uplift, with its natural nadir found when a Disney-style “I Want” number is bestowed upon a Gestapo officer.

Said officer (Ollie Wray) is in love with Guitart’s firebrand White Rose member Sophie, and hand on heart, he vows in song that this swastika-adorned uniform is only a crude disguise under which the bleeding heart of a romantic does defiantly beat. In moments such as this, or Sophie’s brother Hans launching into a starry-eyed solo of his own to explain away (and duly apologise for) his childhood indoctrination into the Hitler Youth, White Rose flirts with a perverse form of accidental camp. As we cycle through what can only be described as recognisable tropes of Holocaust fiction ( officer with a heart of gold; repentant former believer; defiant speaker of the truth; a Jewish woman concealing her identity) it can seem rather like there’s a faux-inspiring song for just about every scenario one of history’s darkest periods has to offer. Unsurprisingly, come the dark turn of fate that sends our plucky heroes to the guillotine, the play feels so wholly unequipped to meet the moment’s crushing bleakness that it may be a relief that it doesn’t really try to. Instead, their fall is cushioned in twinkling piano and yet more vague exhortations to take a stand for what one believes in.  It’s tempting to ask: should a play centred on the Holocaust really leave you feeling smothered in good vibes?

Ultimately, White Rose is skilfully performed by a committed cast and earnest enough to earn some measure of sympathetic goodwill from its audience. It also too often feels simply misjudged, unable to bridge the unbridgeable divide between its peppy form and surpassingly bleak content.

Thomas Messner
Photos: Marc Brenner

White Rose: The Musical is at Marylebone Theatre from 27^th February until 13^th April 2025. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.