80 years after WWII ended, it remains a perennially popular theatrical subject, with so many untold stories waiting to be explored. With the passage of time comes greater gaps in those stories, offering creative opportunities to bring forgotten characters back to life. One such character is Claude Cahun (born Lucy Schwob); a Jewish surrealist artist who fled France to escape the war, only to end up in Nazi-occupied Jersey. Created by DRH Arts in association with Exchange Theatre, Who is Claude Cahun? takes a look into the life of this extraordinary artist who, together with partner Marcel Moore (born Suzanne Malherbe), played a crucial part in the resistance against fascim.
Largely un-celebrated as an artist until after death, Cahun adopted an array of personalities including photographer, sculptor, writer and performer. An artist with a distinctly androgynous appearance, much of Cahun’s work challenged gender norms, and it remains unclear quite how the artist might identify in modern times. Having adopted a male name but typically using female pronouns, there are suggestions in Cahun’s writing that the neuter pronoun was the best fit. Writer D.R. Hill very much runs with this theme in the play, which sees Cahun (Rivkah Bunker) struggling with identity.
If little is known about Cahun, even less is known about Moore (Amelia Armande), Cahun’s life partner and regular artistic collaborator, who is widely believed to be behind the camera in many of Cahun’s photographs. While the title suggests that Cahun takes centre stage, the play might just as easily – and perhaps more appropriately – be called “Who is Marcel Moore?” The production focuses very much on the partnership between the pair and, in particular, the subversive artistic attempts at wartime resistance that ultimately saw them sentenced to death.
Image credit: Paddy Gormley
With so many different potential lenses through which we might view the couple, Hill was faced with the challenge of how best to distill their story into a snapshot suitable for the stage. The focus here is very much the wartime story, with flashbacks to events in Cahun’s life that frame their actions. Although arguably essential to give us the true picture of such a complex character, these scenes do bulk out the play and are less pacy than the action set in Jersey. The same might be said of the occasional interjection of surrealist moments. While it might be suggested that it wouldn’t be a true reflection of Cahun without these moments, it’s probably not needed in a production that seeks to find the real person behind the mask.
What does work well is the projection of Cahun’s own artwork onto the set, giving us a real flavour of the true artist without distracting from the action. There is some fantastic set, video and lighting design (from Juliette Demoulin, Jeffrey Choy and Matthew Biss respectively), which fuse physical sets with clever projections to transform the tiny space of The Little into a range of different locations. There is also some great use of dark humour in a production that remains chillingly relevant.
Bunker and Armande give compelling performances, supported by a further cast of three (Gethin Alderman, Ben Bela Böhm and Sharon Drain) who play an impressively wide array of roles from characters in Cahun’s early life to the inhabitants of Nazi-occupied Jersey. Inevitably some characters are better fleshed out than others and with this amount of multi-rolling, there are also some slightly dubious accents in places, but nothing that takes away from what is ultimately an intriguing and very moving story.
Overall, Who is Claude Cahun? is a compelling production that introduces audiences to an extraordinary pair of artists, leaving you wanting to learn far more about these fascinating figures.
Who is Claude Cahun plays at Southwark Playhouse Borough from Wednesday 18 June to Saturday 12 July 2025. We received a complimentary press ticket to the matinee on 21 June.