[NHC] Monday Night in Westerbork

After dinner Monday night at NHC, Cellio and I were meandering campus a bit, debating which evening option to attend. One of this year's co-chairs (Ben) asked us to help set up chairs for the show in the theater, which made our decision for us.

Monday Night in Westerbork (S. Bear Bergman) is a solo show in alternating pieces, about Bear's research trip to the camps, about zir's gender identity, about our need for each other's stories and the power they contain, along with stories of Max Ehrlich, one of the Jewish inmates of Westerbork (a transit concentration camp in the Netherlands) who staged weekly cabaret performances there. On Monday nights, because on Tuesday, the trains shipped out, taking people to Auschwitz.

It's not a graphic show, but it is intense, however much humor there is (and not just of the gallows sort, either). Max was a popular performer before he was yanked off stage and sent to the camp. Even (especially?) in dire circumstances, people need a laugh. (And entertaining the overlords can keep you alive. Max didn't make it through the war, but used his humor to live more weeks than he would've otherwise.) Bear's own stories weren't light except in contrast, growing up hearing survivor's stories that they didn't tell their own grandchildren. They were at least at another level of remove, not pulling quite so hard on the tear ducts.

Well worth seeing. I wish I'd been awake enough to stay for the discussion afterward.

Bonus for seeing this at NHC: the chance to talk with Bear and zie's (affianced!) partner later during the week.

The Bard, Abridged

Sunday afternoon I caught the last performance of Gurnet Theatre's edition of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged (Adam Long, Daniel Singer, Jess Winfield), at the Boston Playwrights Theatre. I hadn't realized how much of it is improv; definitely worth seeing again to see how others spin the text.

As billed, there's bits from all the plays, though this is made rather easier to fit into an hour an a half when most of the historicals turn into one football scene, and all the comedies are smooshed together into one very silly plot, which leaves a bit more time for the rest. Especially Hamlet, which takes up the second half, in a variety of bizarre permutations.

The original show has three actors. This show used seven, most of them rather young. I'd like to see the smaller show, see how that works out (I suspect having more experienced actors would help a lot here). Still, it was a fun romp.