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- Brotfabrik
Robert Chevara und Whitecloud Productions
Blonde Poison
One-woman play by Gail Louw, directed by Robert Chevara, starring Dulcie Smart as Stella Goldschlag | in English
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Gail Louw's dazzling play 'Blonde Poison' returns after phenomenal success with audiences at Brotfabrik in 2018. It's based on the true story of a woman in Nazi Berlin who betrayed others in order to save her family. Complex and morally ambiguous, 'Blonde Poison' doesn't try and provide easy answers - it poses questions which are still relevant today. It's gripping theatre.
Audiences said about Robert Chevara's production: ‘absolutely mesmerizing’, morally complex, intriguing and disturbing’, ‘superbly acted by the stunningly brave Dulcie Smart‘...
Stella Goldschlag was blonde and blue-eyed and identified as German – but her parents were Jewish, and like millions of other Jews across 1930's Europe, the teenage Stella was labeled an 'Untermensch', subhuman. She was persecuted, imprisoned, tortured. Eventually the Gestapo offered her a deal, if she turned in other Jews, they would take her family's names off the list for Auschwitz. What would we have done?
In 'Blonde Poison', the older Stella waits for the arrival of a journalist. She looks back on her crimes in a final effort to explain her actions and heal her relationship with her daughter. Memory is interwoven with lies and false memories in a thrilling, moving drama.
Playwright Gail Louw is South-African/British with Jewish roots. Her maternal grandparents were deported from Berlin and murdered in Minsk in 1942. Gail’s mother escaped - at the age of 14, she joined her older sister and an aunt in Palestine (later Israel).
- Language
- In English
- Duration
- 1 hour 30 minutes
Press text
"Superb theatre not only because it is crafted so perfectly but also because for days after the show it will leave your heart and mind talking to each other."
Ismail Mohammed, CEO Market Theatre, Johannesburg, South Africa
Credits
Writer Gail Louw is an award-winning British playwright of Jewish descent. Her grandparents were deported from Berlin to Minsk in 1942, where they were murdered by the Nazis. Her mother and aunt escaped to Israel (then Palestine) as young girls.
www.gail-louw.com
Director Robert Chevara is an award-winning theatre and opera director, known in the UK and the US for his startling, controversial, passionate work. This year his productions of Philip Ridley’s 'Vincent River' and Alexis Gregory’s 'Sex/Crime' received huge critical acclaim in the London press.
www.robertchevara.com
Actor Dulcie Smart a leading stage actor from New Zealand, who works in international film and television from her home in Berlin. She is also one of Germany's top English-language voice artists, narrating documentary films and audioguides for museums across Europe.
www.dulciesmart.com
Set Designer Elizabeth Kelly is from San Francisco, California. She studied film and television at New York University and set design at the TU in Berlin. She is also a conceptual video artist. https://kellyelizabethc.wixsite.com/bettykelly
German Press Rep Kerstin Böttcher: blondepoisonberlin@hotmail.com
