Arthur Miller's play, which premiered in 1994, is about compromise, conformity, inaction and denial.
Set in Brooklyn in 1938, it's a portrait of a marriage coloured by the inexorable rise of Nazism far away in Germany - and takes its name from Kristallnacht ("The Night of Broken Glass"), a pogrom in November of that year, in which synagogues and Jewish shops were trashed by civilian thugs and stormtroopers.
The play's main character is Phillip Gellburg, a neurotic executive who works for a real estate firm where he is the only Jew. He is desperate to fit in or simply blend into the background. Events in Germany leave him indifferent - "What can be done about such things?" But his façade is not impregnable.
Antony Sher makes Gellburg fascinatingly complex. He resembles a machine, and his carefully maintained veneer is especially apparent in his hair, which looks as if it has been painted on to his skull. Yet he is uncomfortable in his own skin and ravaged by doubts that are gradually exposed, as anger and self-hatred dissolve his stony exterior.
His wife Sylvia (Tara Fitzgerald) languishes in their large bed, having lost the use of her legs. This seems to be a psychological problem. Her doctor Harry Hyman calls it "hysterical paralysis", apparently an empathetic response to the helplessness of the Jews in Germany, though it may also be related to Phillip's lack of physical ardour.
Fitzgerald gives a measured and precise performance, while Stanley Townsend is stunningly good as Hyman - virile and commanding, the sort of man who can wear riding boots indoors without looking ridiculous. As he falls for Sylvia, his passion seems something that cannot be tamed.
The characters' suffering resounds in the cello music that Laura Moody plays expressively between scenes. It's impressive - but overdone, as indeed is the assertion of the links from the political to the personal.
Broken Glass isn't Arthur Miller at his best: too slow, at times clunky, and overloaded with symbolism. Yet there is a striking rawness in the writing, and fine performances compensate for the flaws.
Iqbal Khan's production is not as intense as when I saw it at the more intimate Tricyle last year, but it remains taut and intelligent, and Sher is utterly compelling.
Until December 10 (0844 482 9675)
Broken Glass
Vaudeville Theatre
Strand, WC2R 0NH
