November 20, 2002

Culture

 

 

Kindertransport

by Diane Samuels

Tom Mellish
OP Contributor

Seeing thé poster of the train and the waif Eva with a
suitcase, the initial leap of association is that the play is
about a journey. The poster reads, “A play about secrets,
memories, and family...” In German, Kindertransport
means literally, “children feed.” This play examines the
effects of the Holocaust on a child and her family. The
lead character of Eva/Evelyn is a fictional composite of
several surviving “kinder” whom the playwright inter-
viewed when researching. The play is about how terror of
the past, like the Holocaust, can and should be remem-
bered.

Coming into the Studio Theatre, angular dark beams
hung overhead the audience, Craig Hall’s set design cre-
ating a forced perspective that drew one deeper into
Kindertransport. | saw Brighton Beach last year, and was
amazed by how much could be done by the Douglas
College Stagecraft Program in such a limited space. For
this show, the studio was a room in Germany, an attic in
England, a train station, a train car and a wharf. The set
transported the drama of separation, channel crossings,
and train evacuations. It was another station, during the
threat of further evacuation from the Blitz, and the
unsettling stress of dislocation from culture and language
as it goes beyond the tolerances of a child. Suitcases and
all manner and size of box were utilized to great effect as
tables and chairs.

Through simultaneous staging, the play depicts two
time periods in a woman's life telling three stories in three
settings. In the first story our young heroine, Eva, is leav-
ing home. The second story is the relationship between
Eva and her adult daughter. The third story, which dom-
inates the second half of the play, features Eva torn
between her past identity and the new one she has forged
for herself.

The first story is set in Hamburg Germany, between
1938 (barely a month after Kristallnacht November 9,
1938 the “night of (broken) glass”, on which the Nazis
coordinated an attack on Jewish people and their prop-

 

erty in Germany and German-controlled lands) and the
declaration of war in 1939. In the nine months before
the outbreak of WWII, almost 10,000 children, most of
them Jewish and under 17, were sent from prewar Nazi
Germany to
known as the Kindertransport.

The energetic 9-year-old Eva Schlesinger, played with
coy and seamless clarity by Jennifer Guglielmucci, blos-
soms into her English persona, Evelyn. Yanked out of her
culture, Eva wrestles between choosing her birth mother
and her adopted mother. Her frustration and try for
indifference is palpable amidst the confusion of war.

Genevieve Smith plays Helga Schlesinger, the “Mutti”
of Eva. Sitting with Eva, Smith is the consummate
matron, staid and dignified, she is superb as Evelyn's bio-
logical mother, strong, teaching Eva to sew a button onto
a coat. Helga’s deathly transit through the concentration
camps marks one of the play’s painful plot points, and
the reunion with her daughter is shocking. Kudos to
Trena Coulter of Costume Design for bringing Helga’s
deterioration to the fore.

In the next story, Eva’s destination is Manchester,
England. Separated from all she knows, speaking almost
no English, Eva is taken in by in by Lil played to a “T”
by Kylie Churchill. Churchill’s portrayal of Lil has the

classic standoff British air, matched with Eva’s frustration

foster homes in England, a movement

and fears. The transitions are fantastic when Churchill
moves back and forth between the past and the present,
between time and space. The effect is almost ethereal as
she leaves the past, entering the other spotlight on the
present.

The final story is set in an attic full of memories in
contemporary London, England. Eva's stuffy adult coun-
terpart, Evelyn, played by Marie Horstead, is revealed
with demure control. As Evelyn haunted the disturbing
past, Horstead is a bundle of nerves and raw energy.
Persnickety, near snide and distant, she is exhilarating as
she moves her character into the play’s turmoil. Her char-

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acter is pained, spending a lifetime reinventing herself so
as to obscure her painful past: the loss of one family com-
bined with betrayal and guilt at creating a new one
formed a new identity. The character has not been
informed about her past, that she was part of the
Kindertransport of Jewish children, a secret from her
inquisitive daughter. Horstead’s mortification at the
exhumation of her original identity is truly riveting.

Evelyn’s nosy daughter, Faith, played winsomely by
Joanna Rannelli, is irascible and probing as she toys with
the decision to move out. Things unfold as they pack up
things she will need at her own place. The play's emo-
tional tautness mercifully slackens with the Rannelli’s
charmingly understated comic asides, whose comedic
sensibilities are well suited for the part of the Faith. Right
off the bat, the daughter Faith is unable to crack the shell
of her mother’s private fears. Their relationship is cross-
cut with the analogous story of young Eva’s separation
from her mother in Hamburg. Rannelli, rummaging
through the family attic, discovers letters and documents
of Evelyn's secret Jewish origins, and her discoveries
become the means to dramatize Evelyn's story.

Tensions between Horstead and Rannelli accelerate
until they come to a head, and Evelyn is portrayed as a
paranoid figure that sees enemies in every shadow.

The collusive Noel Couves was engrossing in his roles.
His Nazi border guard plays a lascivious game of cat and
mouse, and one is not sure how far he will go. His goose-
stepping Postman was disturbing in the definition of
ignorance with the smile of a Lothario. I look forward to
seeing more of Couves’ work.

Matt Zustovic was jaunty and superb playing the role
of the English Organizer, sympathetic yet indifferent
with his clipboard and pen. As the suspicious Station
Guard, there was an anachronism of a small ponytail
sticking out from under the back of the helmet, working
against the scene. Somewhere on the periphery was his
Zustovic’s boogieman Ratcatcher role. I never saw the