Cast: Justine Saville, John Gorman, Sam Teller, Sue Boardman, Isobel Balchin.
Some moments in history defy Humanity’s reason, they challenge us to rise above the savagery and disgrace placed upon our collective shoulders and become better, to come back to a place of sanity and rational thought; history repeats these lessons because it seems we constantly need to be reminded just how low we can quickly descend back into the mire, of how we can lurch and play into the hands of Fascism if we do not keep vigilant.
History has provided us with the means to learn these lessons and every day we must look upon it as a gift of rememberance, the incentive is to allow our children to grow up in peace.
As International Holocaust Memorial Day slowly faded into the sunset, the time for reflection grew strong at St. George’s Hall and as one of Merseyside’s favourite sons, John Gorman, presented two distinct pieces of work of two seemingly different women for the assembled audience, the pattern of life that was cruelly taken and all because of a person’s faith. Two people who captured in their writing what the tyranny of Europe was like under the Nazi regime and the devastation that hatred, ignorance and vile actions could bring.
Anne and Eva, was two very different performances directed by Ellie Hurt in which the point of eye witness, of recording the shame, the loss and the destruction that went on in the name of a mad man’s ideal, was to become a watchword for eternal vigil at the gates of the dawn against such actions being repeated.
The first part, Anne, encapsulated the slow loss of innocence that a young girl hiding away with a family and other Jewish people in a small attic in Amsterdam from Nazi oppression. The joy of the everyday in a girl’s first kiss, of keeping a diary, of keeping secrets close to her soul framed against the looming fear of being found out and sent to the Concentration Camps, the twin dichotomy of hope and terror beautifully captured by Justine Saville in a one person play.
The second half of the evening, Eva, saw John Gorman, Sam Teller, Sue Boardman and Isobel Balchin sit as if giving testimony at a trail, the emotion of facing out to an audience and speaking the words of Eva Geiringer Schloss and her family, the quirk of fate that would see her become the step sister of Anne Frank, the bitterness and death they faced at Auschwitz, the near complete annihilation of Europe’s Jewish population, of state enemies, homosexuals and Gypsies all being spoken with the throat catching and truth being urged to be known.
Both performances enough to understand the point of witness, of asking for forgiveness in the face of such brutality and forever making sure that that portion of history is remembered always for the sickness and depravity in which Humanity can sink, the lie told to a nation on the whim of a madman.
A night in which emotions can run high was beautifully framed by all on stage, a rememberance that didn’t hide in the shadows and was a privilege to witness.
Ian D. Hall