Theresa Tova, the playwright of "Still the Night" came and visited with my Theatre of the Holocaust class this evening. I'm not sure I can manage to explain what just happened this evening, I need to let the experience sink in. In brief:
Laughing/crying/swearing/shouting/whispering/SINGING(in Yiddish!)/drawing us in... her emotions were seamless as she flowed through the text, to the music, to the stage directions, to telling us stories, then back to the play, then filling us in on secrets... all the while bringing each one of us into her life - at one point actually physically taking one of us in.
At one point she got so intense that she dropped her play on the ground. What a moment - for her to be so into the text, that she dropped the physical text on the ground and leapt away.
Words cannot describe the experience we all got to share, but seeing as this is a journal... words are all I can use. So here are some of her words from tonight. I'll start off with my favourite:
"Your truth, as specific as it is to you, universal. You've got to know that. As long as you're true"
"When you're in love, the whole world is Jewish"
"If you do correct grammar and put a Yiddish accent on it, you sound like Neil Simon"
"She never stopped fighting the war" ~ on her mother
"You can't control your parents or the press"
"Ooo he's so frustrating but he's so magical" ~ on Brent Carver
"I don't care that Hitler fucked you up... I want to choose life... I will not hide who I am" ~ to her mother.
"Let's not do the 'poor us, poor victims'. It's not about that anymore... this girls were fighters!"
How did she write her play?
"My work has to come from something I know"
"I just sit in my mothers vibe... I'm fine!"
"I sat with a bottle of brandy for three months at the computer"
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