Plays find humanity in crises
Charlotte Delbo, a member of the French Resistance against the Nazis, was sent to
Auschwitz concentration camp. Her Who Will Carry the Word depicts the lives of French women there who found solidarity in working to keep the
strongest of them alive so that someone would be able to share their stories with
the world. Delbo's play, translated by Cynthia Haft, has been called a sobering and
moving tribute to the resilience of people placed in horrific circumstances.
Who Will Carry the Word addresses life amidst death. (Sue Kessler photo)
The play will be presented by the theater department, on the mainstage of Skidmore’s Bernhard Theater, Oct. 21–23 and 27–30, with 8 p.m. curtain times except for Sunday matinees at 2 p.m. Tickets are $12 (or $8 for students and seniors); call 518-580-5439 or email the box office.
Director Rebecca Marzalek-Kelly ’02, a Brooklyn-based theater artist and choreographer, calls Who Will Carry the Word "a powerful lesson in humanity." She says, "Each of the survivors (49 out of 230 women) knows that without the others, she would not have returned." Marzalek-Kelly also expresses awe for Delbo, who, as one of the survivors, "spent a great deal of her life accounting for these women and sharing their stories."
Later this fall, the theater department also presents The Orphan Sea, by Obie winner Caridad Svich, in Bernhard Theater's Black Box space. It runs from Nov. 30 through Dec. 6, with showtimes at 8 p.m., except for a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday. Tickets are $12 (or $8 for students and seniors); call 518-580-5439 or email the box office.
Directed by faculty member Eunice Ferreira, this multilingual, multimedia performance asks, "How do we respond to global crises of displaced people and environmental threats on our Facebook news feed?" and "What does it mean to cross digital, linguistic, and physical borders?" Ferreira says the event aims to engage the audience in a metatheatrical journey across waters, time, and geographies using song, poetry, film, and dance. Svich has written that The Orphan Sea is "a story of those that cross rivers and seas and those that wait for them, of a lover who searches for one lost years ago, and of someone called Penelope, who may be waiting for someone called Odysseus."
