God on Trial is a 2008 British television play written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, starring Antony Sher, Rupert Graves and Jack Shepherd. The play takes place in Auschwitz during World War II. The Jewish prisoners put God on trial in absentia for abandoning the Jewish people. The question is whether God has broken his covenant with the Jewish people by allowing the Germans to commit genocide on them. It was produced and shown by the BBC on 3 September 2008. Production was supported by PBS, which screened the play as part of its Masterpiece anthology.
The play is based on the Elie Wiesel play The Trial of God. Cottrell-Boyce describes this tale as "apocryphal". Wiesel later stated that the event was true, and that he had witnessed it. According to Cottrell-Boyce, producer Mark Redhead "had been trying to turn the story into a film for almost 20 years by the time he called me in 2005 to write the screenplay."
Plot
Jewish prisoners in a barrack at Auschwitz question why God has let this happen to them, His chosen people, and decide to try God in absentia to get at the answer. This becomes an extended debate on why God permits evil. The first theory proposed, that God must allow people to choose actions that lead to horrible results because human freedom of will is such an important value—a solution many consider the true one—is rejected with contempt, and the debate continues. Finally, one of the men, a rabbi, reviews the record of God's deeds against Israel’s enemies in the Hebrew Bible, and draws the conclusion that God is not good, and that he has simply been on their side throughout history. He recounts that he had seen the phrase “God is with us” engraved on the belts of the German guards, concluding that God has now turned against the Jews once and for all. The account is so powerful that the others accept it, and there is a moment of silence. "So what do we do?" says one. "We pray," says the proposer of the theory grimly, and they rise, face one way and begin to pray. The scene fades to the present day, with visitors to Auschwitz standing stunned in the same space; the ghostly figures of the prisoners are seen among them, praying.
Cast
Joseph Alessi - Kapo
Josef Altin - Isaac
Ashley Artus - Ricard
Alexi Kaye Campbell - Doctor (presumably Josef Mengele) Dominic Cooper - Moche Lorcan Cranitch - Blockaltester Stephen Dillane - Schmidt Rupert Graves - Mordechai François Guetary - Jacques David de Keyser - Hugo Agnieszka Liggett - Tour Guide Louise Mardenborough - Emily Eddie Marsan - Lieble André Oumansky - Jacob Blake Ritson - Idek Jack Shepherd - Kuhn Antony Sher - Akiba Stellan Skarsgård - Baumgarten René Zagger - Ezra Dailly Hilaire
Score
The music for the film was especially commissioned and composed by Nick Green and Tristin Norwell.
Reception
Reviews were overwhelmingly positive. Sam Wollaston in The Guardian found it "powerful and thoughtful stuff, with some fine performances by some fine actors – Antony Sher, Rupert Graves, Dominic Cooper." Remarking that Cottrell-Boyce wrote the piece from a position of personal faith, James Walton in The Telegraph observed, "Yet, as each of the characters put forward a different view on the question of God and suffering, it was clear that he was willing to interrogate his beliefs with real ferocity." This was a complex piece, and "as the fierceness of the intellectual and emotional grip tightened, it was impossible to imagine any halfway-thoughtful viewers, of whatever prior convictions, not having a disturbing sense of their own ideas coming under sustained and convincing attack." In a long review for The Times, Tim Teeman had great praise for the cast: "The performances were so strong it felt a privilege to watch the actors, among them Antony Sher, Rupert Graves, Stephen Dillane and Jack Shepherd." He also praises director Andy de Emmony's "brilliant, arresting sleight of hand... [mixing] the prisoners, naked and shorn, together with the present-day touring party in the gas chamber." For The Independent, Thomas Sutcliffe remarked on Sher's role as the play's smouldering fuse: "Every now and then you saw Antony Sher, davening silently in a corner of the barracks. Like a loaded gun in a Chekhov play, you knew he was going to go off eventually and that it would be significant when he did, and indeed it was his explosive inventory of God's biblically attested crimes that finally swung the judges in favour of a guilty verdict."