KinderTransport

I’ve been going to see Westovian’s perform plays for many years now and never seen them put on a poor performance – Tonight’s production of KinderTransport was no exception. It was thought provoking, superbly yet sympathetically acted and directed and introduced to me a star in the making playing the role of young Eva.

For those who are unaware of the story I warn you that there are spoilers following;

KinderTransport is the story based on true life of Jewish children that were paid for by their parents to escape the coming horrors of WWII and the persecution of Jews in the concentration camps. Many children never saw their Jewish parents again and were adopted by British parents and over time forgot their native language, culture and often memories of their biological parents.

It is in this setting that ten-year-old ‘Eva’ nervously and apprehensively was put onto the KinderTransport trains with the promise that her parents would follow in a month or two. Even on the trains ‘Eva’ is ill-treated by the German Officer (Ron Markwick). Her confidence grows as she crosses the border out of Germany only to have it return as, speaking only Deutsch, she is patronised by Evacuee organiser (Gary Mason). Ron and Gary doubled up as the British Station Guard and Postman respectively and their prejudice to those of their German counterparts remained strong.

KinderTransport is a technically difficult show to perform with a split set of German house in Hamburg and a Tyneside loft which is constantly alternated between from different time references of 1939 to the late 1980’s respectively. Peter Dawson as Director really got this to ‘work’ and the pace never faltered.

Young ‘Eva’ (10 year old Eva Craig) with very guttural Germanic accent was taught to fend for herself by her stage mudder (Rachel Craig). The warmth between them was very real (as I’d expect by her real life mother) and was a joy to watch as we saw ‘Eva’ grow from 10 year old in Hamburg to 17 year old with much less pronounced Germanic accent in Tyneside.

Concurrently we saw the scenes flip alternatively between 1939 and late 1980’s with the introduction of ‘troubled’ Evelyn (Miriam Beber) with the very cultured British accent, her mother ‘Lil’ (Tracy Office) and Evelyn’s daughter ‘Faith’ (Katie Stubbs).

We see throughout the course of the fast moving play the strain on the relationship between Evelyn and Faith as Faith is planning to move out on her own. Cast in the role of ‘peacemaker’ is ‘Lil’ who in the many time-line crossovers we see as the British ‘mother’ of young ‘Eva’ when we finally realise that Evelyn is the grown-up version of the timid Jewish evacuee ‘Eva’.

The plot twists keep coming thick and fast as we see what happened to ‘Eva’s Jewish parents and the  distressing decision that has to be made.

This was a ‘hard watch’ as we saw the real-life horrors of families split up because of prejudice but oh so worth it.

Each character played their roles to perfection with great empathy, and all should be congratulated – but a special mention must be reserved for Eva Graig, who at 10 year old, commanded the role with a massive dialogue – was rarely off the stage – kept her accent up throughout – amending it during the passage of time and breaking into great passages of German language. We have a star in the making.

To quote one of the lines in the play “Home is not a place where you live but a place within you….”

Councillors comments
Congratulations to the cast of KinderTransport this was the first time that i had seen this play although i was aware of the story and the events that lead to the transportation of the Jewish children during WWII. a very emotional production which captured the tragic events that can tear families apart from wars and the devastation and permanent consequences that are left on innocent people and in this case vulnerable children. Well done to the whole cast for delivering this heart rending story, special mention must go to the talented Eva Craig who played the role of Eva,  for a 10 year old young performer  Eva delivered an outstanding performance capturing the emotions of a young child been torn away from all she had, her home family and everything that she held dear to her. congratulations on a outstanding production

Peter Oliver
NODA North Councillor 

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