Vercors, the author of The Silence of the Sea, was the nom de guerre for Jean Bruller, who was a member of the French resistance during World War 2. His novella, published clandestinely in 1942, was propaganda, advocating passive resistance to the Nazi invaders, hence his use of a pseudonym.
A German officer is billeted in a small country cottage, the home of an elderly man and his young niece. They never speak to him. The officer, a decent, scrupulously polite, considerate and cultured man, loves France and dreams of a happy outcome to the war which will end in a marriage of the two nations as equals. His naïve idealism is shattered when he goes to Paris for a brief holiday and is disgusted by the behaviour of his fellow officers; he is so appalled he asks for an immediate transfer to the Soviet front, tantamount to a desire to be killed as soon as possible.
An adaptation of Vercors’ novella in 1946 was the first play to be televised by the BBC after the end of World War 2. The German officer was played by Kenneth More. I have not read the novella. I have only seen the 1949 French film, directed by Jean-Pierre Melville with a memorable performance by Howard Vernon, so I was surprised that in Anthony Weigh’s stage version Leon Bill, who now plays the German, was not in uniform and that the director Simon Evans did not immediately establish that the play is set in Nazi-occupied France, thus denying the story its dramatic tension and its whole raison d’etre. I never felt I was watching Le Silence de la Mer.
Leon Bill, who was last seen as the most vicious of the arrogant Bullingdon Club louts in Laura Wade’s Posh, might not seem on paper to be an obvious choice for the German officer; but he is, in fact, excellent and handles his long monologues with great dexterity and variety. He is ably supported by Finbar Lynch as the old man and Simona Bitmaté as his all-but silent niece.