Linck & Mülhahn

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Written by Ruby Thomas, this epic love story centres on the true lives of a gender-pioneering couple – dashing soldier Anastasius Linck and the rebellious Catharina Mülhahn. All well and good, but I wish Thomas and her director Owen Horsley had dug more deeper and faithfully into the story's period setting, and allowed us to care about both characters as messy, complicated products of their specific moment rather than as emblematic figures co-opted by history, even if the words non binary and trans are conspicuously not used. Fist-clenching activists may be happy enough; the rest of us are left starved of subtlety and insight. The cast also include Lucy Black (The Durrells, The Haystack), as Mother, plus Daniel Abbott, David Carr, Marty Cruickshank, Kammy Darweish, Qasim Mahmood, Leigh Quinn and Timothy Speyer. The most frustrating example of this is in its conclusion, where an intriguing commentary on truth is presented by the older Mülhahn, about something being made being “un-made”, and how the concept of truth has become subjective, ready to be reinterpreted by individuals as they see fit.

Like the principal characters, Thomas’s script eludes categorisation, weaving in Restoration comedy, Jane Austen and courtroom drama, as it depicts the unseemly scrabbles of the marriage market. Maggie Bain ( Man to Man, Wales Millennium Centre; Henry V, Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre) plays the role of Anastasius Linck with Helena Wilson ( Jack Absolute Flies Again, National Theatre; The Lady from the Sea, Donmar) playing the role of Catharina Mülhahn and Lucy Black ( The Durrells, ITV; The Haystack, Hampstead Theatre) playing Mother. For all the talk in the play about seeing beyond what is on the surface, Bain is exceptional in expressing the gravitas, weight and emotion of Thomas’ dialogue, evidently connecting with Linck’s testimony. Maggie Bain (Man to Man, Wales Millennium Centre; Henry V, Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre) plays the role of Anastasius Linck with Helena Wilson (Jack Absolute Flies Again, National Theatre; The Lady from the Sea, Donmar) playing the role of Catharina Mülhahn and Lucy Black (The Durrells, ITV; The Haystack, Hampstead Theatre) playing Mother.Irrelevant asides and some truly dreadful acting derail the Courtroom scene that takes up much of the second half. Unlike Hampstead theatre, which, stripped of its grant last year, has just put on the most exhilarating play I’ve seen there for ages.

It’s a metaphor for religion, gender and conventional morality, but an unfortunate one in a play full of stray threads. One moment we have a tender domestic scene, the next we are in comic absurdist territory with a courtroom whose judge could have been written by Peter Cook. Anastasius Linck, an orphaned army deserter, was sentenced to death; their wife got off with a three-year jail term, after pleading ignorance of her husband’s sex at the time of their marriage.Even in moments of silence in the courtroom scenes, a single stare from them at whoever is in the dock conveys so much, and it’s absolutely fascinating to witness. The polite harpsichord music of balls and boudoirs is fractured by ecstatic blasts of music from the 20th-century counterculture, as the can of worms is cracked open by a versatile 10-strong cast.

Ruby Thomas’ epic and playful modern love story takes eighteenth century court records as its starting point. Owen Horsley’s production locates it in a tender bath scene – perversely stuffed into an overhung corner of the set – where Maggie Bain’s charismatic Anastasius strips off for the first time, in the garret that has become the couple’s marital home, moments before the law comes banging at the door, bringing an abrupt swerve into courtroom drama.They were ultimately tried for sodomy, and this could easily be one of those depressing stories that queer history books are littered with, the ones where people dare to be different and then get crushed by conventional society’s peppermill. There is a neat theatrical economy as a brutally diminished Anastasius is defended from the witness box by the comrades and conquests they deceived in their former life, who suddenly understand why they were a more considerate lover and a kinder friend, and Catharina’s flustered mother (a splendid Lucy Black) discovers she has condemned the daughter she wished to save. Disclaimer: I was invited to watch ‘Linck and Mülhahn’ for free in exchange for a review of the performance as a member of the press. When they were prosecuted for sodomy in 1721, Mülhahn claimed she’d been tricked by Linck and escaped with a three-year sentence.

Most of the nuances and ambiguities have been ironed out; this is history as viewed through the prism of an Adam Ant video. Owen Horsley directs at Hampstead for the first time; his credits for the RSC include the recent double bill of Rebellion and Wars of the Roses, as well as Maydays and Salomé.Our autumn/winter season celebrates Hampstead’s cosmopolitan roots with a range of international playwrights from Scotland to the USA, Northern Ireland to France and some great homegrown talent in between. They will be joined by Daniel Abbott, David Carr, Marty Cruickshank, Kammy Darweish, Qasim Mahmood, Leigh Quinn and Timothy Speyer. If you missed I, Joan at the Globe last year, then Hampstead Theatre’s Linck and Mülhahn tries to emulate its daring and ambitious nature, but only somewhat successfully. Imaginatively reverse-engineered from a historic trial document, Ruby Thomas’s tale of a couple who pioneered gender flexibility in 18th century Prussia is, ultimately, a bit of a mess. It’s appropriate for our current post-truth era, and the idea of retrospectively applying a new truth or interpretation to stories of gender from history is incredibly timely and novel, but to leave it as a footnote rather than an idea explored from the start – especially when the play opens and closes with an older Mülhahn as our narrator – is underwhelming and disappointing.