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PRINZ BETTLIEGEND in South Africa: Multidirectional Memory, Apartheid and the Holocaust

Tue, December 18, 2:30 to 4:00pm, Seaport Hotel & World Trade Center, Amphitheater

Abstract

The invitation from the Performing the Jewish Archive project to reconstruct the musical revue Prinz Bettliegend, first performed in Terezín/Theresienstadt during World War II, evoked an array of thoughts for a group of lecturers and students in present-day South Africa. We, a predominantly young South African cast, could never fit the shoes of a cast living in a ghetto in the 1940s. Even at the tip of Africa in 2017-18, this was something we could only imagine. Accepting this invitation brought with it the knowledge that we were entering a sacred space of experience and remembrance with the task of conveying told and untold stories. The invitation to enter this space of research and commemoration lead us down a road of self-discovery, while we also stayed cognizant of the fact that we were only invited to engage with stories within a specific context: within the ethical limits defined by the historical events of the ghetto. Michael Rothburg’s theory of multidirectional memory, with its logic of productive intercultural dynamics, and the comic theatrical style of the original production gave us permission to tread respectfully yet boldly in the performance space of potential and possibility, and enabled us to make the sometimes presumably unplayable playable and to find our own truth in South Africa’s current challenging times. After the original PtJA festival production in September 2017, an invitation to restage the performance five months later for Stellenbosch University’s Word Festival prompted us to revisit the questions: were we worthy of trying to recreate or re-imagine this production? Was a term other than ‘recreate’ more applicable? What term would be sufficient? A reconstruction? These thoughts and questions were included in our script during the second run.

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