Staging the Holocaust: The Shoah in Drama and Performance

Description

'To portray the Holocaust, one has to create a work of art', says Claude Lanzmann, the director of Shoah. But can the Holocaust be turned into theatre? Is it possible to portray on stage events that, by their monstrosity, defy human comprehension? These are the questions addressed by the playwrights and the scholars featured in this book. Their essays present and analyse plays performed in Israel, America, France, Italy, Poland and, of course, Germany. The style of presentation ranges from docudramas to avant-garde performances, from realistic impersonation of historical figures to provocative and nightmarish spectacles. The book is illustrated with original production photographs and some rare drawings and documents; it also contains an important descriptive bibliography of over two hundred Holocaust plays.

"...the exceptionally thought-provoking volume entitled, Staging the Holocaust: The Shoah in Drama and Performance...offers us chapter after chapter introducing and analyzing the work of various theatre artists from all over the world who have taken up this weighty challenge." Dr. Diane Cypkin, Iyar-Sivan