FARMINGTON – It is a rare opportunity to experience one of the most harrowing events in history. However, audiences at the Emery Arts Center were recently given such a chance.
Last week, the University of Maine at Farmington hosted a performance of “Etty,” a one-woman play adapted from the journal entries and letters of Etty Hillesum, a 27-year-old Jewish woman living in Amsterdam in 1943. The play documents Etty’s life leading up to her eventual deportation to Auschwitz and the personal journey she underwent within the midst of Nazi-occupied Holland.
During the hour-long performance, the audience followed Etty through her numerous experiences — from the intimate, yet clinical relationship she shares with her psychologist to the conflict of working beneath a Jewish Council charged with deporting its own people. The show explores Etty’s insights into human nature, despair and the prevailing hope of humanity.
The play was written by Elizabeth Stein, who studied acting at NYU Graduate School and SUNY Purchase before adopting the project. Stein originally came across Etty’s diaries by chance at a garage sale in Norridgewock, where she purchased them for 50 cents.
“It’s not a play about the Holocaust,” Stein said after her performance. “It’s about a young woman’s life and how she’s determined not to be limited by her circumstances.”
Stein spent six years working on the project, traveling to the remains of the Auschwitz concentration camps in Germany and even managing to locate the widow of one of the major acquaintances Etty mentioned in her journals. She tried to gain as complete of an understanding of the material as possible.
“I knew I needed to get to her heartbeat,” Stein said. “Find what’s between the lines.”
Stein described editing the passages as arduous, stating that “every line that goes is a good one, one that gives some unique insight.” Through the process of assembling the show however, Stein said that she was able to gain a better understanding of her own faith, claiming that Etty helped “dig up God” within herself.
The power of Etty’s prose has been recognized prior to Stein’s show, inspiring several films, radio broadcasts and books. Two of Etty’s letters were used to rally support for the Dutch Resistance – adding to the persuasiveness and insight of her words.
The show was directed by Austin Pendelton, an American film, television and stage actor as well as playwright, theater director and teacher. The show is currently touring Maine. Dates, locations and further information can be located at the show’s official website, www.EttyPlay.org.
