Light Falling Down

The play opens with Ruth, a young girl, recounting Kristallnacht and the death of her father. Approximately two years later, Alice, a young Gentile woman discovers Ruth is hiding in an underground hole, on her farm outside of Warsaw. The action of the first act takes place on two physical levels, with Alice (above ground) in dialogue with Ruth (underground). The second part or movement of the piece takes place in California, present day. Through a series of casual encounters in a master-planned suburban community, Tuvia (Ruth’s daughter) meets Eva and Klaus, cousins from Argentina, via Poland. Eva is intrigued with a doll belonging to Tuvia’s daughter Ava. Although it is never revealed, the subtext of their encounters depicts a growing suspicion that Eva and Klaus are children of Nazis and that Tuvia’s family are victims of the Holocaust. Tuvia stumbles upon Eva’s home while petitioning door-to-door in the development. Encouraged by Klaus, Eva invites Tuvia in for tea. An encounter ensues whereby the link to Eva and Ruth is revealed as well as the resolution of the story of Alice and Ruth dramatized in the first part of the play. The tension builds as the two women confront their past, demons, guilt, denial and anger and resolves with the question of whether or not a second-generation survivor and perpetrator can co-exist.

Format: Full-length drama

Cast Size:5F/1M

Character breakdown:

Ruth, 11–16
Eva, 60–70
Tuvia, early 40’s
Alice, 20’s–early 30’s
Klaus/SS Officer, 50’s–60’s
Little Eva/Ava, 6–9

Original or Prominent Production:
October to November, 2013, at the Oceanside Theatre Company, California.

Original Source Material: Inspired by five years of interviews with women survivors.

Original Language: Written in English and includes some Polish, Spanish and Hebrew words and prayers.

Production Rights Holder:

Aimee Greenberg

Experience(s) Chronicled: Nazi War Crimes and Judgement | Women and the Holocaust | Liberation | Allegoric or Metaphoric Representations | Concentration and Extermination Camps | Deniers and Denial | Hiding | Righteous Gentiles | Perpetrators, Bystanders and Collaborators | Rescue | Survivors and Subsequent Generations | European Jewry Before the Holocaust | Escape | The Ghettos | Resistance