Wiesenthal - The Nazi Hunter
Who hasn’t heard & read about World War 2, Hitler and his immeasurable hatred for the Jews and the torture unleashed, leaving the world totally shocked. The scars and memories of the same is very palpable even today and the impact has been so large that youngsters today who were not born in that period( for that matter even I was not born) still find the horrors of that period moving them.
During my childhood, I had of course heard stories shared among the adults of the family. But, the book by Anne Frank was what moved to me tears ! Later I read more about it here and there like 'O Jerusalem!'', 'Israel in the mind of America', 'The Holacaust' by Martin Gilbert and the gripping 'How we captured Adolf Eichmman' in Readers digest. How I miss Reader’s Digest and those days when there was no OTT and YouTube .. which has made me read rarely !
So, when I heard of this play ‘Wiesenthal’ being about one man’s lifelong struggle to bring those people who inflicted this torture on the Jews, to justice even years after the war was over, I was determined to watch it.
So, when I heard of this play ‘Wiesenthal’ being about one man’s lifelong struggle to bring those people who inflicted this torture on the Jews, to justice even years after the war was over, I was determined to watch it.
Now, this is no fictional story made into a Bollywood/ Tollywood movie , where the hero brings the villain to justice by fighting him on the road, mountains, deserts and thrash him till the police appear from nowhere. This is a real story of a Jewish man, who was survivor himself having been in a Nazi camp and seen his loved ones go through terrible torture and who vows to identify each one of the uniformed men to the court of law and get them to trial. Imagine how painstaking and tedious this must have been. And patience in finding them and also in waiting for the verdict and respecting the verdict all this done in the pre Google era !
This play was a one man act staged at Alliance Francaise, produced by Poochus Productions, on August 28th this year. If anyone is wondering why it took me this long to write about it, the fact is it took me almost a month to recover from it, and what followed was PS1.. which was easier to recover from despite the glamour.
Wiesenthal was a one man show played by T.M.Karthik who gave a breathtaking performance, and his acting was complete with authentic Austro-Hungarian accent, and the tremor in the hands due to Wiesenthal’s advancing age.
It was remarkable the way, he remembered all those lines with no help from another soul on stage. He was quick to make us feel a part of his space and from there we were totally absorbed in Weisenthal’s story.
One may ask why are we interested in a Jewish holocaust now, a dated story from a different land?
Like Wiesenthal himself says in the play, "one must speak of all genocide, to prevent all genocide".
I loved the way he as a stage actor controlled the urge to speak loudly. This worked well for the character . It was apparent that he had spent a long time getting into the character of Wiesenthal.
Karthik carried it brilliantly with his "old man" voice and gait
Victor Paulraj's lighting was effective, neat and his change of hues for establishing different time periods was perfect
Sitting in the audience, I noticed many people were watching with almost moist eyes the sterling performance of Karthik.
We all travelled to Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945 and beyond.
The make-up team from Pearls academy must be lauded for achieving such finesse , especially the bald look
No wonder the show got a long and sustained standing ovation. The director of the play Denver Antony Nicholas should be commended in setting up such a wonderful space and getting the actor to deliver without melodrama. The images shown in between made the story that much more real.
It was a masterstroke that at the end of the play, they showed a clip of the real Weisenthal asking not be portrayed as a hero but just a survivor ! And the one final question - who will do this after him ? Who will continue his work ? Most of us can resonate with this question as to who will continue what we have been doing ? I tell myself, why should someone continue something we have started? After all everyone will have their own mission and calling in their lives like Wiesenthal had !!
Wiesenthal was a one man show played by T.M.Karthik who gave a breathtaking performance, and his acting was complete with authentic Austro-Hungarian accent, and the tremor in the hands due to Wiesenthal’s advancing age.
It was remarkable the way, he remembered all those lines with no help from another soul on stage. He was quick to make us feel a part of his space and from there we were totally absorbed in Weisenthal’s story.
One may ask why are we interested in a Jewish holocaust now, a dated story from a different land?
Like Wiesenthal himself says in the play, "one must speak of all genocide, to prevent all genocide".
I loved the way he as a stage actor controlled the urge to speak loudly. This worked well for the character . It was apparent that he had spent a long time getting into the character of Wiesenthal.
Karthik carried it brilliantly with his "old man" voice and gait
Victor Paulraj's lighting was effective, neat and his change of hues for establishing different time periods was perfect
Sitting in the audience, I noticed many people were watching with almost moist eyes the sterling performance of Karthik.
We all travelled to Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1945 and beyond.
The make-up team from Pearls academy must be lauded for achieving such finesse , especially the bald look
No wonder the show got a long and sustained standing ovation. The director of the play Denver Antony Nicholas should be commended in setting up such a wonderful space and getting the actor to deliver without melodrama. The images shown in between made the story that much more real.
It was a masterstroke that at the end of the play, they showed a clip of the real Weisenthal asking not be portrayed as a hero but just a survivor ! And the one final question - who will do this after him ? Who will continue his work ? Most of us can resonate with this question as to who will continue what we have been doing ? I tell myself, why should someone continue something we have started? After all everyone will have their own mission and calling in their lives like Wiesenthal had !!
About the Author:
Sandhya Shankar belongs to a well respected business family in Chennai. She is a Life Skills & Corporate Trainer by profession. She is an avid reader and a natural writer, who has written several poems and articles. She even presented her poems as a reading at the British council. She has keen interest in all art forms and has explored many different forms of painting like stained glass and Tanjore being among them.
Music being her first passion, she had her formal training under Terakotti Chandrasekharaiah at Bangalore and later briefly under Mrs Champa Kumar. She is a regular visitor of concerts, theatre and other live performances. Her witty reviews have gained a loyal and interactive readership for their sound technical commentary and relevance for every kind of melophile, from the casual-goer to the ragam expert, frequenting Chennai’s rich music scene.
(*The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and not necessarily those of Music of Madras.)
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