Kindertransport

SUNY Cortland Performing Arts Fall 2017

Lab theatre

            Kindertransport is a play by Diane Samuels inspired by the British rescue mission, at the beginning of WWII to save Jewish Children by sending them to England to live with Foster Families.

  The playwright juxtaposes past and present to tell the story of Eva, a young Jewish girl sent to England to live with her Foster Mother Lil Miller.  The play explores the affects on a young girl, losing her home, losing her mother and  having to adapt to a new life, new culture and way of life.  This story shows us the dark side of abandonment perceived by Eva and her own abandonment of her biological Mother years later. We see the tole this takes through three generations of women.

  For this design, Director Dr. Deena Conley and I set out to represent the attic location, described in the play, but also to setup a world that could easily allow the actors to move between past and present, Germany and England.  I divided the stage into an upper and lower acting area.  The Upper area of the attic was more realistic and detailed, while the lower area, representing the past, was open and sparse like memories.

The staging utilized a thrust stage or three sided seating area allowing audience members to have a close, intimate viewing of the action.  The attic walls and ceiling broke apart, stylistically, as it moved from present to past. This concept was developed by research into attic spaces and noticing how the photographs cut off the ceiling beams.  This idea was supported further through research of bombed out buildings in war torn Europe. 

            One wall of the attic was treated with a scrim affect to allow an actor to be revealed with light.  A scrim affect makes a wall or surface opaque when lit from the front, becoming transparent when lit from behind.  This was used at the end of the play to reveal the Mother as if she were a memory, haunting Eva’s past.  The scrim was also used to reveal the “Ratcatcher,” a figure from a Children’s book that represented Eva’s past and her fears moving forward.