Address Unknown VENGEANCE POSTAL
Address Unknown
of (Kathrine) Kressmann Taylor
Directed by Jean Claude Nieto
Marseille Centre Fleg,
Tuesday, January 11
Cart With Michel and Jean Claude Nieto
The work
can sleep soundly when it is not. When it has, it is easy to believe in themselves deaf ears, blind eyes closed. That's the lesson might be drawn, very retrospect, alas, reading, hearing the news of Kathrine Kressman (1903-1997), Address Unknown (1938), 'Address Unknown' which, at that time foresaw genocide of European Jews that methodically put in place Nazis. However, first published in magazine and book in 1939, this short story form of correspondence, had considerable resonance in the United States and around the world, but probably not enough for deaf ears voluntarily, or to open deliberately myopic eyes to the terrible events that had occurred in Germany, gangrenous Europe. Yet the American journalist and academic from Germany, had to conceal his first name Kathrine and substitute his name Kressman, sounding male, as it was felt in the chilly America announced that it happened and complained, the more astonishing, were detonating in a single woman. Yet neither seen nor heard by his pseudonym of a man ...
And she set? Through this fictional correspondence between two friends, partners in a thriving art gallery San Francisco covering two years (1932/1934), one, Martin Schulze, returned with his family in his native Germany, the other, Max Eisenstein, a German Jew Americanized is gangrene of the progressive Nazification first But apparently enlightened bourgeois spirit, what line to line shown in these letters, with the rise toward tragedy when, refusing to allow the sister of another actress, but yet famous Jewish pursued by the SS, he abandons them to preserve, by the sacrifice of his peace officer dignitary of the new regime. And it's good (?) Consciousness, or perverse unconsciousness, he recounts the details to the friend and brother of the victim across the Atlantic, hyphen that bound them together and separates them forever now. Max will pull in turn, without any petition or answer, according to Jewish law of retaliation, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, a terrible revenge, or rather justice, turning, line by line as the anti-Semitic arguments of the other Judaizing systematically Nazi persecutor of the Jews.
Realization and Interpretation
A stage, two offices lit by two lamps but separated by an ocean of shadow in each, two men in suits and ties, one dark and one , tan: minimalist decor, minimal elements to express a maximum. Two citizens if not sewn with gold, plush, probably both in their skin than their outfits, ease people settled into their lives. Not the rough typewriter, fountain pen in beautiful stylish, elegant, aesthetic-we quickly discovered they write, written, read through the Atlantic Ocean that now separates them, answer: in turn, they tell in their daily lives, their environment and content, good accounts that are good friends, the manager the art gallery they owned in Frisco, the money they draw. The tone is friendly, warm becomes complicit in the remembrance by Max bargains made at the expense of Jewish ladies snobs, pricking of paint, which they peddle crusts. From 1932, the pair exchanged therefore first personal anecdotes, daily. Two friends in good company living in art, art evoking the great names in painting which they trade refined: the best of the culture and civilization. The sister of Max American, Grisel, actress, triumph in Vienna.
From Germany man dark glasses, the black man, Martin, returned to his beloved Germany, tells his relocation with his family in this country still devastated by the aftermath of the Great lost war, ravaged by the Great Depression, inflation, which it enjoys with its dollars back, to acquire property and numerous servants. It softens the room and its misery German correspondent, who drinks his words, sorry to see this picture the ancient and distant country, which, without any specific historical event other than the dates of the letters n'étaye frame , we reconstruct the history of Germany in the crucial cross-road: the burning of the Reichstag, Hitler's seizure of power that which we are beginning to speak, the beginning of persecution against the Jews.
atmosphere exchanges changes, the rhythm, the heartbeat accelerates: Max is concerned, seeking further information through the echoes of the facts collected in America, Martin calmly, notes, explains, justifies: This Hitler is that a necessary evil, transient, the engine of a revolution that defeated Germany hard to humiliation, which regenerates. To understand too, you end up sorry, is what we understand. Martin, Michael Cart , metallic voice, percussion, intoxicated with the poisonous revival of Germany the haughty air of supposed superior race when, under cover of friendly jest, he refers to his Jewishness Max, arguing ironically on anti-Semitic persecution there is no effect without a cause, and explains that the fire smoke - the smoke, we think, we learn the terrible anticipatory later. One senses in him a fever and hysterical history: the liberal tipped in evil. The actor, who stumbles a word, is the hesitation, pen collecting, the writer, joined the theater.
In Max, his voice low, round, wounded humanity , Jean-Claude Nieto, who signs this concise and efficient staging, felt the feelings that animate it in reverse, to the Epistle perverse policy of the other. The anguish the press to ask the friend about his sister Grisel who had the imprudence, believing its strong success in the theater in Vienna, playing in Berlin. A week of triumph, then silence, the letter of American brother in the theater back to the sender with the terrible words: "Unknown at this address ". And it's horrible and quiet letter to Martin that practically gave the young woman with SS It's injunction to Max not to write him indirectly because it can not have intercourse with a Jew and Nazi censorship reads the letters .
Nothing in the game Nieto / Max betrays shock, repulsion, revolt against the other abominable. Instead, closed except to face a cold determination, we will break the record of prudence and Martin write him directly, but by annexing it to his Jewish family, the Judaizers for censorship, compromising adding, under the guise of art trade, painters like Picasso sulfur uneducated eyes of the Nazis, who will soon be filed and convicted under the rubric of entartete Kunst, Degenerate 'Art of'. In short, the general panic by Martin prays, begs Max not to write him that way because he condemns the camps, death, making the former friend a brother, Max designates as a Jew, all told, he makes his own coin: the account is settled and Martin's account: the last letter of Max will not reach its destination: "Address Unknown." A faint smile lights up the face of stealth and Martin Nieto / Shopping melts into the shadows and fog overnight.
say much done with so little effect: art in great dignity and humility.
Photos:
1. Face to face;
2. Michael Cart;
3. Jean-Claude Nieto.
