Joseph Haffman is a jeweller in Paris in 1942 during the German occupation where Nazi action against Jews is in progress. He has already managed to get his wife and children out of the country, but now his life and his livelihood are at risk. He plans to go into hiding and does a deal with his assistant, Pierre Vigneau. Vigneau will take over the business and support him while he in the cellar until the situation goes back to normal.
Vigneau agrees, but on his own conditions. He and his wife want a child, but Pierre has been told he is infertile. Joseph has already fathered four children; now his side of the deal will be to get Isabelle Vigneau pregnant.
This odd ménage, with Isabelle going down to join Jospeh in the cellar at the times when she is most likely to conceive, could flower into farce were it not for the context, but the emphasis here is on the embarrassment and frustration it produces. It may have been Pierre’s idea, but he is increasingly jealous. He gets out of the way for the hours of Isabelle’s assignations by taking tap dancing lessons, the thunder of his pounding feet matching the feelings for which this allows outlet.
There is little mention of the danger that the Vigneaus could be putting themselves in. The threat from the Nazis is largely expressed through Asaf Zohar’s music and sound design. Pierre’s jewellery designs find a market among rich Nazis, the business flourishes and, while Joseph hides below, Pierre hobnobs with the likes of Berlin’s Ambassador Otto Abetz. Abetz was a real person involved in this fiction, which relies on its theatricality to make it believable—and on performances that distract from its implausibilities.
As Haffmann, Alex Waldmann gives us a man trapped in an impossible situation, missing his family and any social contact so that he takes a risk that endangers all of them. Michael Fox’s Vigneau clearly loves his success as a jeweller while becoming increasingly tense in his relations with Haffmann (and tap dances with vigour). Pierre makes his deal without first consulting Isabelle, and Jennifer Kirby, reluctantly disrobing, gets her awkward embarrassment but suggests a growing closeness with Joseph.
Although the introduction of Nazi Otto Abetz and his wife as dinner guests may seem implausible, Nigel Harman as suave Abetz epitomises the cultured Fascist while Jemima Rooper as his wife Jemima positively oozes her delight at being in the upper echelons of power.
Farewell Mister Haffmann seems to be two plays here, not entirely welded together, but it makes a lively fiction with a double twist ending.