LOS ANGELES — For those old enough to remember the horrifying brutality and tragedy of the Second World War, Wendy Kout’s new play Never Is Now, the past is prologue” is almost too unbearable to sit through. Yes, it’s yet another Holocaust story, compiled from the testimony of ten Jewish survivors and presented by six actors, three men and three women, who change their personas as they switch from one character to another.
The story is introduced by the “director” who is guiding his players through the final rehearsal of a play about the history of the Holocaust. The six players are young and cheerful as they announce their names and the various
European countries they had lived in before they came to Germany.
But very soon the story moves into the realization of Hitler’s demonic plans for his country. Under the slogan
“Make Germany Great Again” he demolishes trade unions and political parties and burns the books that he deems
detrimental to his philosophy.
Still, one of the young men who agrees with Hitler’s activities argues with the others. “We don’t know the truth”
he says, “we just know the spin.” He is challenged by one of the other men, who declares, “It’s silence, denial, and apathy that allows for the worst to happen.”
“Hate is winning,” says another. “You’re only safe if you’re a straight white Christian.”
By November 1938 the Nazis had turned hate into the violence of Krystallanacht, (“The Night of Broken Glass”), becoming engaged in the destruction of Jewish-owned shops and businesses, burning synagogues, vandalizing Jewish homes, and killing some 100 Jews.
In keeping with Hitler’s determination to exterminate all the Jews in Europe, a ghastly physician, Dr. Josef
Mengele, was provided with 500 boys on which to perform physic al experiments. He chose 89 of them.
The actors also cite the 375,000 prisoners who died on the death marches as the defeated Nazis hurriedly evacuated the prisoners from the concentration camps.
At this point the various characters in the play agree that “America is Nazi Germany,” citing deportation, the separation of children from their parents and housing them in cages, the incarceration of people seeking asylum, and other abuses perpetrated by Americans under the rule of Donald Trump.
Earlier, they had discussed the persons that Hitler claimed were “undesirable”: Jews, gays, prostitutes, the disabled, et al, and one of the play’s ever-mutating participants turned to another player, who happened to be disabled, and asked, “How does it feel to be an undesirable?”
“Never Is Now” is a truly heavy-duty play and it isn’t much ameliorated by the ending, in which the surviving characters plead for HOPE! and advise each other to “Find a cause bigger than yourself.”
This play was commissioned, developed, and produced by the Center Stage Theatre in Rochester, New York,
from a story by Wendy Kout called Survivors, and it has since been presented in many schools as an instrument for teaching new generations about the Holocaust.
This version is directed by Tony Abatemarco and Celia Mandela Rivera and stars Evie Abat as Woman #1, Eliza
Blair as Woman #2, Sarah Tubert as Woman #3, Joey Millin as Man #1, Adam Foster Ballard as Man #2, and
Michael Kaczkowski as Man #3.
Never Is Now is currently having its world premiere at the Skylight Theatre, 1816 1/2 North Vermont, in Los Angeles. It will run on Fridays at 8:30 p.m., Saturdays at 4:00 and 8:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. through October 27. For reservations call (213) 761-7061 or (866-811-4111). For online ticketing, go to http://SkylightTix.org.
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Cynthia Citron is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts.