“YOU can’t deny yourself, you can’t deny the memory that history holds within your body, the life lived even before you lived, the life before you were born.”

That’s one of the many striking lines in James Phillips’s play The Rubenstein Kiss, the story of the Rubensteins, a deeply devoted Jewish couple whose communist idealism leads to their world being torn apart by suspicion and treachery which then echoes through the generations.

It premiered in 2005 at Hampstead Theatre, winning a number of awards. Now Devil You Know Theatre Company is bringing the play to the Southwark Playhouse for its first London revival.

Phillips’s explosive and affecting drama, inspired by the haunting true story of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, executed in 1953 for allegedly providing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union, is a study of conspiracy, betrayal and guilt.

Why is it pertinent today? The Western world and Britain in particular is facing up to the global and personal consequences of ideological political decisions in a manner not seen for generations. One could argue that Britain has not been this divided since the civil war split communities, and even families, in two.

It’s in this context that this remains a powerful play of personal politics, set against the canvas of McCarthyite anti-socialist hysteria. The case of the Rosenbergs gripped the US and remains a potent case for many on the left seven decades later.

Phillips’s 2005 play was written amid the “war against terror” in Iraq and Afghanistan but is even more resonant now as the personal conflicts of our own political allegiances face us all daily.

Who can honestly say that they don’t look at their fellow Tube or bus passengers and wonder which side of any number of debates their loyalties lie — Leave or Remain, Momentum or Blairite, second referendum or “respect the will of the people?”

We forge our public identities through these conflicting standpoints and to do so has private consequences.

The Rubenstein Kiss challenges us to examine what a big idea costs little people. Some would rather go to the electric chair than betray the idea of a socialist utopia. Some confess readily in order to protect the idea of family.

No-one is wholly innocent, no-one is wholly guilty. Everyone acts and everyone suffers in consequence.

A matter of days after the play opens, Britain is scheduled to leave the EU. Will this lead to further divisions within our society?

Only time will tell but I hope audiences will come away from the theatre with a deeper understanding of the delicate balance between our personal and political viewpoints and consideration of the role our actions play in ensuring a fair, just and equal society for all.

The Rubenstein Kiss opens at Southwark Playhouse on March 14 and runs until April 13, box office: southwarkplayhouse.co.uk