The great-grandfather of Oregon Book Award-winning playwright Andrea Stolowitz kept a journal for his descendants after escaping to New York City in 1939 as a German Jew. Following the complicated lure of genealogy, Stolowitz goes back to Berlin to bring the story of her unknown ancestors out of the archives into the light. The record keeps as many secrets as it shares; how do people become verschollen, lost, like library books? 1M/1W, 110 minutes with intermission.

“If the news cycle has you feeling numb right now, it’s possible Stolowitz’s story will jolt you awake. But beware: The transition may be a jarringly emotional one.”

Megan Burbank, Portland Mercury

“Engrossing and surprisingly funny...a play about memory and loss and the force of history, and about the limitations and possibilities of the theater itself...”

Bob Hicks, Portland Oregonian

“It’s not easy to get a Berlin audience to laugh at jokes about the Holocaust...The joke comes early in the play, but the themes of forgetting and remembering run throughout the project.”

Lily Kelting, NPR Berlin

“Investigates the fallible nature of memory to ask how we know what we know.”

Mead Hunter, Artistic Director, New Harmony Project

“We experience something magical - a shock of true human identification.”

David Winitsky, Artistic Director Jewish Plays Project

Production History

Touring: Hamilton, NY (Colgate University); Ashland, OR; Toronto, Canada
US production: Hand2Mouth/Coho Productions, Portland. 2017
Germany production: English Theatre Berlin/IPAC, Berlin. 2016

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