Treasure, theatre review: A punishingly profit-free evening

I was looking forward to this curio, the exceedingly belated UK premiere of a former favourite of Yiddish theatre. I hoped the title alone would prove a good omen. How wrong I was. Treasure (1906) by David Pinski turns out to be a punishingly profit-free evening, grindingly repetitive and, in this production, riddled with sub-standard acting from an unwieldy cast of 18.

We’re in Russia in the early 1900s, where Tille (Olivia Bernstone), the frustrated and impecunious daughter of local gravedigger Chone (James Pearse), dreams big dreams, not least of marriage to a handsome man. Yet with no dowry Tille’s prospects are bleak, until her brother unearths a stash of gold sovereigns in the graveyard. He gives them to Tille, she goes on a big shopping spree and very soon wildly exaggerated rumours of the change in the family’s fortunes start to fly around the little town.

I suspect we’re meant to find Tille, with all her scheming, a spirited and enterprising heroine, but in Alice Malin’s awkward production she’s nothing more than a shrill and objectionable brat, endlessly condescending to her decent if rather uninspiring parents. This skewing of the central character makes for a long trudge through scenes which are crying out for editing; what relief a decent sub-plot would have provided. It’s also hard to comprehend why Pinski has Tille withhold certain key facts until the very end. This is by no means a dramatic discovery of long-buried treasure.

Until November 14, Finborough Theatre (0844 847 1652, finboroughtheatre.co.uk)

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