Oct 8, 2023 – Oct 28, 2023
Part of The Pool Plays 3.0: Three playwrights. Three plays. One remarkable experience.
The Berlin Diaries
By Andrea Stolowitz
Directed by Will Steinberger
With David Greenspan and Rebecca S’manga Frank
The great-grandfather of Oregon Book Award-winning playwright Andrea Stolowitz kept a journal for his descendants after escaping to New York City in 1939 as a German Jew. Following the complicated lure of genealogy, Stolowitz goes back to Berlin to bring the story of her unknown ancestors out of the archives into the light. The record keeps as many secrets as it shares; how do people become verschollen, lost, like library books?
In this complex, contemporary drama about the search for home, fragmented heritage, and Jewish diaspora, two performers scintillate between characters and locations at the border of reality and memory and the intersection of national history and private lives.