Jeff Recommended!
Can a secret keep you alive? This deceptively simple play begins with several actors rehearsing in a room and expands to examine holocaust era Berlin and modern-day Israel and Palestine. The play seems to be about a man who questions his estranged grandmother about the validity of a long-held family legend. But ultimately, the play becomes about history, and the ways that humanity uses its art, its secrets and its memories to shape the history of our families, ourselves and our societies. Featuring Brenda Barrie, Tony Bozzuto, Patrick De Nicola, Bilal Dardai, Shane Michael Murphy, Samuel Buti, and Josh Hambrock.
Praise
“Recommended.”
“[Playwright] Jonathan Lichtenstein deals far less in provocation than in how we reconstruct the past in order to survive what is too painful to contemplate.”
“Matthew Reeder’s taut and exceedingly well-acted BackStage Theatre Company production … becomes a passionate and sorrowful portrait of worlds and minds divided. Brenda Barrie is enthralling as Eva, an East German Holocaust survivor, and Bilal Dardai and Samuel Buti find communion as a Palestinian on the verge of being displaced and an Israeli soldier reluctantly carrying out the eviction order.”
January 1st, 1970
Setting up parallels between Nazi Germany and Zionist Israel seems designed to inflame, but Jonathan Lichtenstein deals far less in provocation than in how we reconstruct the past in order to survive what is too painful to contemplate. Lichtenstein’s play-within-a-play device feels strained, but once Matthew Reeder’s taut and exceedingly well-acted BackStage Theatre Company production gets beyond narrative throat clearing it becomes a passionate and sorrowful portrait of worlds and minds divided. Brenda Barrie is enthralling as Eva, an East German Holocaust survivor, and Bilal Dardai and Samuel Buti find communion as a Palestinian on the verge of being displaced and an Israeli soldier reluctantly carrying out the eviction order.
- Kerry Reid, Chicago Reader
- Kerry Reid, Chicago Reader (Read the full review)
“An indisputably haunting new production by the BackStage Theatre Company.”
“Barrie is so wrenchingly truthful, and the capable Lichtenstein is shrewdly and openly probing the issues that always comes up about the Holocaust.”
“Barrie, gives her compelling character every ounce of her empathy, indignation and, most important, her theatrical turmoil.”
January 1st, 1970
In “Memory,” the flawed but indisputably haunting new show by the BackStage Theatre Company, the ever finer Chicago actress Brenda Barrie plays Eva, a Holocaust survivor who suffered unspeakable losses at the hands of the Nazis.
But “Memory,” a piece by Welsh playwright Jonathan Lichtenstein that was imported to New York in 2007, is set up as a play within a play. We’re in a rehearsal room. Barrie doesn’t just play Eva, who is seen both as a 78-year-old resident of East Berlin in 1990 and as a young Berliner during the 1930s and early 1940s, she also plays an actress named Brenda who is rehearsing a piece very much like the one we’re watching.
And thus at the climactic moment of the play, when Eva is reliving the agonizing memories she has shut away in order to survive, Brenda the actress is so overcome with the pain of the moment that her director has to feed her the lines. It is a riveting scene — partly because Barrie is so wrenchingly truthful, and partly because the capable Lichtenstein is shrewdly and openly probing the issues that always comes up about the Holocaust.
How can a modern actress — even one as capable as Barrie — possibly create a facsimile of such pain? And even if she can, isn’t the very reincarnation of that experience disrespectful, given that it’s an easy way to grab an audience by the throat?
The scene kept me awake last night, and stays with me as I write.
But “Memory” — or, at least, Matthew Reeder’s uneven production, takes a good while to find its feet. The play, staged in the studio space at the Viaduct Theatre (a poorly designed, chopped-up artistic space that has torpedoed too many shows I’ve seen there), is designed to start out as a casual rehearsal and let the play itself gradually take over. Fair enough. But this production goes much too far with the casual opening, dissipating focus, paying insufficient attention to the little framing details of time and place and diffusing the energy and the narrative, so that it is much harder for the play to finally grab hold.
Although, with the help of some fine acting, grab hold it most certainly does. Eventually.
There are two main plots. Eva’s story involves a friendship with two men — they become a “Jules et Jim”-like trio. But Eva and the man she eventually marries (honestly played by Tony Bozzuto) are Jewish. Their friend Patrick (the similarly powerful Patrick De Nicola) becomes a Nazi. Horrors ensue.
Meanwhile, in another area of the stage, a separate, more contemporary conflict plays out as an elderly Palestinian (Bilal Dardai, doing his considerable best to appear older than his years) refuses to leave a house that a Jewish soldier (Shane Michael Murphy) has been ordered to requisition.
To my mind, the Holocaust story, Eva’s story, would be better standing alone. And Lichtenstein is clearly drawing the kind of simplistic and overly crude moral equivalency between these two aggressive acts — even down to parallel lines between the Nazis and the Israeli soldier — that will understandably offend some, and that tends to play better in his native Wales than the United States.
But Lichtenstein is a strong enough writer that he adds plenty of his own struggles to the piece. And he honors Eva and her journey toward the articulation of the truth. So does Barrie, who gives her compelling character every ounce of her empathy, indignation and, most important, her theatrical turmoil.
- Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
- Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune (Read the full review)
Cast & Crew
Matthew Reeder
Director
Jen Poulin
Stage Manager
Jen is thrilled to join BackStage Theatre Company as Associate Artistic Director. Her journey began with a magical experience stage managing Aunt Dan and Lemon. She also stage managed Memory and Three Days of Rain. This season, Jen will be directing the first piece for The Listening Series, as well as stage managing A Number. Jen recently collaborated with 2nd Story on a solo piece, Cabinalysis, for the Minnesota and Chicago Fringe Fests.She received her BFA in Theatre with an emphasis in directing from University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign. After graduating, Jen spent several happy years teaching drama, music, and dance to grade school children in the north and southwest suburbs. She has had the pleasure of working with many fine Chicago companies, including Strawdog Theatre Company, Eclipse Theatre Company, WildClaw Theatre, Serendipity Theatre Collective, Steep Theatre Company, Mary Arrchie Theatre Company, and Silk Road Theatre Project. Chicago stage management credits include Eclipse Theatre, Theatre Mir, Mary Arrchie Theatre Company, Rasaka Theatre Company, WildClaw Theatre, and Silk Road Theatre Project. She holds a BFA in Theatre Studies from University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign. /p>
Brenda Barrie
Company
Brenda Barrie, an ensemble member since 2008, was last seen with BSTC in the Jeff Recommended production of Aunt Dan and Lemon, the Chicago premiere of Beauty on the Vine, Li'l Bit in the acclaimed How I Learned to Drive, and Florrie in Waiting for Lefty, (Non-Equity Jeff Nomination-Ensemble). Credits around town include Mrs. Caliban at Lifeline Theatre (Non-Equity Jeff Nomination-Principal Actress), The Ruby Sunrise at the Gift Theatre, Mariette in Ecstasy with Lifeline Theatre (Non-Equity Jeff Nomination-Principal Actress), understudying Of Mice and Men at Steppenwolf Theatre (SYA), Graceland at Profiles Theatre, A Streetcar Named Desire with Metropolis Performing Arts Centre, understudying St. Scarlet for American Theatre Company, Caravaggio with Silk Road Theatre Project, Tango at the Chopin Theatre, the 13th Annual Winter Pageant with Redmoon Theater, Ragnorak with Tantalus Theatre Group and Thimbleberry Gallows with GreyZelda Theatre Group. Brenda earned her BFA in Acting from the University of Indianapolis and studied theatre at the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland. www.brendabarrie.net
Tony Bozzuto
Company
He was last seen in the Jeff Recommended Memory and Orange Flower Water, and in On An Average Day. For about seven years, Tony has been honored to work his way around the Chicago theatre scene with such talented companies as Lifeline Theatre, Next Theatre, Metropolis PAC, and, of course, BackStage Theatre Co. Whether on stage, television or film, Tony credits much of his skills and successes to his studies at the incomparable Hilberry Theatre in Detroit, MI, where he received his MFA.
Shane Michael Murphy
Company
Patrick De Nicola
Company
Patrick De Nicola is thrilled to be back with Mr. Reeder and Backstage after taking on Edward Albee in, The Play About the Baby. Other Chicago credits include: Henry/Paul in The Ruby Sunrise (Theatre on the Lake & The Gift Theatre), Pete in Almost Maine (The Gift Theatre) and Collaboraction’s Sketchbook 9. This upcoming April he will be playing Sonny in American Theatre Co’s The Original: Grease. Patrick is a graduate of Second City and is a founding member of the Indy comedy troupe Shoelace Academy. Love and thanks to his family, Annie, his Shoelacers, his wonderful friends, and Gray Talent Inc. Patrick is a graduate of Emerson College (Boston, MA) with a BFA in Acting and a BA in Film.
Angela Campos
Properties Designer
Heath Hays
Scenic & Lighting Design
Heath is a BackStage Ensemble member, where he has designed set for On An Average Day, The Memory of Water, Beauty on the Vine, Bloody Bess and Zombies from the Beyond as well as the Jeff-recommended shows Waiting for Lefty and Medea. He also designed sound for BackStage's The Ruling Class and Seanachi Theatre's drama Whistle in the Dark. He designed set for Infamous Conmmonwealth Theatre's Keely and Du, GreyZelda's Jeff-recommended production of A View From The Bridge as well as their Desire Under the Elms, and Hell in a Handbag's Caged Dames. Heath has also worked for Grounded Theatre, Arena Dinner Theatre, and Village Players.
Ben Jacobson
Dramaturg
Ben graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a BA in history and minor in theatre. As a part of the Honors Program, his thesis – ‘prechars, pryntars, and players’: Control, Conformity, and the Theatre Under Mary Tudor, 1553-58 – won the departmental Martha Belle Barrett Prize for Outstanding Thesis in 2010. He is currently one of the literary interns at American Theater Company, and is pursuing a career as a dramaturg, sound designer, and historian. Credits as a sound designer include Dying City (Station Theatre, Urbana); In the Blood, Whispers of Bedlam, and Patient 307 (Armory Free Theatre, Champaign); and Moonchildren (U of I Dept. of Theatre). He was the sound board operator for 16th Street Theatre Company’s remounting of This Train (Steppenwolf Garage), and will be the board op for Steppenwolf’s First Look Rep new plays festival in October. Ben is very excited to be working with Backstage for the first time, and incredibly grateful to Matthew for giving him his first real dramaturgical opportunity.
Stephen Ptacek
Sound Designer
Marisa Williams
Costume Designer
Samuel Buti - Company
Bilal Dardai - Company
Josh Hambrock - Company
Shane Michael Murphy - Company
Angela Campos - Properties Designer
Stephen Ptacek - Sound Designer
Marisa Williams - Costume Designer
I saw the show for the first time on Sunday and was blown away by the performance. As a Jew, I grew up hearing Holocaust survivors tell their stories. I’ve seen countless documentaries about Nazis and photos of the European ghettos. I’ve been to the Holocaust museum in Israel and a concentration camp outside of Prague.
But Memory isn’t just a story of Nazis, Jews and Germans. The story is about the multi-dimensional characters. Felix isn’t just another Nazi; he was conflicted about his friendship with one Jew and his deep love for another. Each of these complex characters forces us not to look at the big picture, but to zoom in and see the people that make up each group. We don’t see “Palestinians”, we see a man about to lose the house he grew up in. We don’t see “Jews”, we see a man and woman who were betrayed by their friend and are now struggling to stay alive.
Memory personalizes the stories I’ve heard for years, and it’s an experience that stayed with me long after the house lights came up.