An underground tunnel at the Terezín concentration camp.(Courtesy Village Theater)
 |
Terezín, a Musical will show at
First Stage Theatre, 120 Front St. N, Issaquah, on Fri., and Sat., June 2 and 3 at 8 p.m. and Sun., June 4 at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $10-$12 or free with Village Originals membership. Contact the box office at 425-392-2202 or visit www.villagetheatre.org.
|
After seeing Brundíbar and The Kaiser of Atlantis, two Nazi-era operas written by victims of the Holocaust while in the concentration camp known as Terezín, I’m eager to see a new work being presented by Issaquah’s Village Theater called Terezín, a Musical.
This new work is a labor of love for Virginia Criste, who commissioned it after doing some research about her grandparents and their experience in Terezín.
“My father was an only child,” she said. “For a long time he didn’t want to talk about his parents much.”
Eventually she learned that when her father left home to go to college in France in 1938, his parents remained in Germany. His father didn’t want to leave his successful real estate business, feeling confident that he and his wife would be okay there during the Nazi era. He was wrong. They were deported to Terezín on the last transport in 1943 and later shipped to Auschwitz, where they died.
In 1990, Criste went to Prague to visit the Jewish Museum. When she dug into the archives she found all sorts of remnants of life — letters, drawings, and pictures from before the war. It had a huge impact on her. Criste realized that she needed people to know that these prisoners laughed, loved, and lived despite the terrible circumstances in Terezín. She had a story to tell.
That was 16 years ago, and today her dream is coming closer to being realized. In 2000, Criste commissioned a play from Peter Ullian, which was later set to music by Joel Derfner with lyrics by Len Schiff.
“It’s still very much a work in progress,” says Criste, “but with every performance and hurdle we pass, the musical is becoming stronger. The lyrics are brilliant and serious, and the music is accessible.”
The play itself concerns the Jewish intellectual and artistic elite of Europe who were deported to Terezín in 1943.
Terezín, a Musical begins in the present time with the character of Hannah, an artist and former Terezín inmate, visiting The Jewish Museum in Prague. As she looks back at her memories, the play goes with her, where we meet a handful of other characters based on composites of real-life people who lived in the camp.
The story then explores the fortunes of these prisoners as they attempt to understand the truth of their captivity. When the Nazis “beautify” Terezín in an attempt to deceive the Red Cross and sway public perception, the prisoners struggle to expose the truth through art and music — and in so doing, discover the humanity they all share.
The show is being developed through the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, a nonprofit organization dedicated to nurturing the creation and development of new and classic musical theater. Robb Hunt, the executive producer at Village Theater, met Criste through NAMT, and agreed after reading the piece to present the musical here.
Terezín, a Musical is part of Village Theater’s “Village Originals” series, a nationally recognized program dedicated to developing new musicals through workshops, readings, seminars, and full productions. To date, over 55 new musicals have been developed, many of which have gone on to be staged around the world.
Both Criste and Jeremy Dobrish, the New York stage director who will direct this show, are very impressed with Village Theater’s new musicals program.
“Village Theatre is a national treasure,” says Dobrish. “By giving us time, resources and the talent of their staff and acting pool, they are allowing us to tinker with the shape of the show, in front of audiences — not critics — until we get it right. Robb Hunt, and his faith in our work, has been instrumental in allowing us to create what we hope will be an important new American musical.”
Because Village Originals is offering this performance in “workshop” form, director Dobrish is faced with the additional challenge of limited rehearsal time and no props, costumes, lighting or scenery. The actors will have scripts in hand. Dobrish says that his job is to make sure that the show is clear and presented in a straightforward and honest way.
“The most important thing to me,” he says, “is that the audience can follow the story, given that they’ll have to use their imagination to fill in all of the missing production elements that we will eventually have in a fully realized production.”
What the audience won’t have to imagine is the music coming from these actors and musicians. The current plan is for a small chamber group to accompany the singing actors. The music was written to be accessible to an audience more accustomed to musicals than opera.
“Whenever you are writing an historical piece, musical style becomes very important,” says Joel Derner, the composer. “I tried to write in a modern vernacular style but have heightened it a bit. Basically it’s a modern score with a classical inflection.”
So far, the audiences who have seen the show seem to understand the intentions of the project’s creators. Criste says that survivors in every town they’ve played have come to see the show and afterwards to talk about their own experiences.
“Enough time has passed since the Holocaust,” she says, “that we’re starting to lose our firsthand information as the youngest survivors die of old age. It’s time to let these stories be told.”
MORE COVERAGE
