Rebecca Rovit, author of The Jewish Kulturbund Theatre Company in Nazi Berlin
Lisa Peschel’s beautifully-produced, edited Performing Captivity,
Performing Escape: Cabarets and Plays from the Terezín
Ghetto is a valuable addition to scholarship related
to the cultural heritage of the Holocaust: theatre art
produced in situ at camps and ghettos during the years
1933-1945. Peschel’s collection assembles for the first
time in English play texts from the ghetto’s Czech and
Austrian repertoire between 1942 and 1944. The book’s
mosaic structure with its plentiful photographs and
archival documents allows readers to engage with
interconnected details of a performer’s biography, the
context within which the text was written, performed,
and translated. In this way, we gain insight into the
vital cultural life of Terezín as well as its legacy.
Peschel’s meticulous research on Terezín includes the
assistance of surviving performer-witnesses to translate
and recreate the play texts. This benefits cultural
historians and theatre practitioners alike who wish to
understand something about the performers and their
performances, with an eye to re-staging the texts on
today’s stages.
Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Pronunciation Guide
Edition Notes and ConventionsIntroduction : Lisa Peschel
Prologue : Terezín Theater : Ivan KlímaPart 1: Czech-Language Texts
- Radio Show : Felix Prokeš, Vítězslav “Pidla” Horpatzky, Pavel Stránský, and Kurt Egerer
- Looking for a Specter : Hanuš Hachenburg
- Songs from the Revue Prince Bettliegend : František Kowanitz
- The Smoke of Home : Zdeněk Eliáš and Jiří Stein
- Laugh With Us
- The Second Czech Cabaret : Felix Prokeš, Vítězslav “Pidla” Horpatzky, Pavel Weisskopf, and Pavel Stránský
Part 2: German-Language Texts
- From the Strauss Cabarets : Leo Strauss and Myra Strauss-Gruhenberg
- The Treasure
- A Puppet Play in Ten Acts : Arthur Engländer
- Purimspiel : Walter Freud
- The Death of Orpheus : Georg Kafka
- The Insult-but Unintended or, The Man with the Detective Memory
- A Theresienstadt Courtroom Scene : Author Unknown
- From the Hofer Cabarets : Hans Hofer
Epilogue : New Year’s Eve
In the Oederan Slave-Labor Camp : Lisa Zeckendorf-KutzinskiGlossary
Bibliography