Farewell Mr Haffman

One of France’s most successful new plays receives its English language premiere in Bath this summer.

The French play Adieu Monsieur Haffmann by Jean-Philippe Daguerre has been a commercial and critical success in France, and won four Molière Awards in 2018, including Best New Play. It has been one of the longest running plays in France and was recently made into a French movie.

The year is 1942. Paris is under Nazi occupation. Jews are being rounded up. Joseph Haffmann, a Jewish owner of a jewellery shop and his long- standing employee Pierre Vigneau change roles as part of a strange deal which could only take place against the background of an absurd and tragic reality. Joseph Haffmann will transfer the ownership of the jewellery store to Pierre, on the condition that Pierre hides him from the Nazis. In return, Pierre insists that Joseph enter into a very unusual arrangement with Isabelle, Pierre’s wife...

Add to that a Matisse painting, an ‘art loving’ Nazi officer and his outrageous wife, and marital difficulties amplified by the bizarre domestic situation, it is no wonder that Pierre is driven to the brink.