Prime Stage Brings An Inspirational Drama to the New Hazlett Stage

 

There seems to be some impulse in the human psyche that strives to memorialize. Everything from the naming of museums and theaters after financial benefactors and the erection of grave markers both colossal and modest to dedicating ships and creating holidays (think Memorial Day and the feast day of St, Patrick) that spotlights this inclination.

On another level, playwright Celeste Raspanti underscores the drive and power of memory in her stirring drama I Never Saw Another Butterly and The Terezin Promise.

Set in the concentration camp of Terezin in Czechoslovakia as World War Two is going badly for the Nazis, we meet the young Raja Englanderova. Just off the train and entering the bleak and dismal camp under the gateway arch emblazoned with the ironically diabolical words Arbeit Macht Frei, she enters frightened and alone.

She soon finds some emotional support from Irene Synkova (Holland Adele Taylor), who has been secretly encouraging a young group of Jewish girls (played by (Eva Balodimas Friedlander, Sadie Karashin, Molly Frontz and Aftny Tomaceski) to cope with the brutality and inhumanity they see around them in camp by having them write poetry, sing and make art works on paper. The activity has a positive effect that helps them rise out of the daily maelstrom of fear and helplessness. Raja not only joins the group but eventually becomes its leader after Irene is sent away to Auschwitz for extermination.

Ironically, the Nazis temporarily created “model Jewish settlement” when the Red Cross came through to inspect the site and were blind-sided by the for-show-only display of pleasant or at least tolerable conditions. The camp deteriorated after this one day propaganda stunt for outsiders, and it was following this time period that the playwright sets her drama.

 Daily, the girls see some of the prisoners, loaded like cattle on to train cars and sent off to other camps as part of Hitler’s “Final Solution.” These include a young and intelligent boy named Hanza (Aaron Little) with whom she develops a mutual caring relationship. Heartbroken, she slogs on nonetheless.

Because she promised her teacher that she would safeguard as much of the artworks the children produced at the camp, both as a way to preserve the memory and proof of their existence, but also as a way of giving tangible evidence of the existence of the monstrous camp.

As the war’s end nears, we hear shouts from German soldiers who hadn’t yet defected but are in charge of burning all records of the camps existence and the horrors they perpetrated there.

Denying herself a chance to escape the camp when it becomes feasible to do so, Raja and others in her group are joined by Hanus Sattler (Jackson Frazer) in a determination to save the poems and paintings. Just as they are about to put their plan in motion, a severely wounded German soldier arrives with a menacing Luger in hand. This heralds the play’s most intense, angst-ridden moments.

Without revealing the ending, I will admit that the creative relics hidden at the camp were eventually found, including a poem by camp inmate, Pavel Friedmann, from which the play’s title is taken. Many of them ended up at the Jewish Museum in Prague, Czech Republic.

As Raja, Kocur transforms from an initially frightened new arrival to a courageous, fervent instrument for keeping the memory of the victims of Terezin alive through their creative works. It is said that, of the more than 15,000 children who passed through Terezin, only 141 are known to have survived. Thanks to the valiant efforts of a small but determined group of youngsters their memory lives on in a most salient manner.

Co-founder and producing artistic director of the Prime Stage Theater Company, Wayne Brinda, directs this thoughtful play and, by doing so, both entertains and creates a stirring and uplifting theatrical experience. It’s one that should be locked in your memory for quite some time.

I Never Saw Another Butterfly and The Terezin Promise, a Prime Stage Theatre production with assistance from The Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh and the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum, is at the New Hazlett Theater on Pittsburgh’s North Side, through March 9. For tickets and more information, click here.