White Rose – the Musical
Marylebone Theatre

THE German word flugblutter translates as “a flying piece of paper.” The subversive leaflets of the White Rose took flight when brother and sister, Hans and Sophie Scholl, flung them from the balcony onto their fellow students at the University of Munich on February 18 1943. This is an excerpt:

“The day of reckoning has come. The reckoning of German youth with the most abominable tyrant our people have ever been forced to endure. We grew up in a state where all free expression of opinion has been suppressed.”

Leaflets were distributed throughout Germany as the White Rose resistance movement spread.  

For these subversions of Nazism the White Rose activists were executed by guillotine. Later the RAF dropped tens of thousands of copies of their leaflets over Germany with the new heading Despite Everything, Their Spirit Lives On.  
 
The first thing we see is a printing machine squatting centre-stage, like a crown, or holy grail. Pieces of paper were flung into the audience by the actors. A nice touch. 

This story of heroism and resistance to fascism through the printed word is relayed through song, and the singing is very fine: Collette Guitart and Tobias Turley as Sophie and Hans Scholl, Owen Arkrow as Willi Graf, Mark Wilshire as Professor Kurt Huber, Danny Whelan as Christoph Probst, Danny Colligan as Max Drexler. There’s a powerful solo too, from Charley Robbie as Jewish bookseller Lila. 

But the now ubiquitous soft rock form of musical theatre — plenty of minor key, guitar chugs and piano riffs — simply isn’t the best way of telling this important story. Opera, or a play might have served this potentially heart-wrenching story better. Music should open the emotional valves, but this production filters them, allowing mere enjoyment of a production well done.

The character of Frederick Fischer (Ollie Wray) brings some complexity. An old friend of the Scholl’s, and now a swastika-wearing policeman (not Gestapo, he points out) introduces the “what would you have done” dilemma, further complicated by his love for Sophie. He wants to run away with her to Switzerland; she stands her ground. 

It is also interesting too that Hans Scholl was a troop leader in the Hitler youth. This is important, as it reveals the seductive nature of National Socialism for a generation shamed through defeat, and the strength and integrity required to reject it.

In a situation where truth and morality get mixed up, a great line like “The truth needs our help, but it is there” stands out, along with quotes from the leaflets themselves:

“Adopt resistance wherever you are; block the functioning of this war machine before it is too late, before the last city is a heap of rubble, before the last youth of our nation bleeds to death on some battlefield.”

Runs until April 13. Box office: 020 7723 7984, marylebonetheatre.com