The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.

At 90, Adolf Hitler is transported out of hiding in the Brazilian jungle. Such is the premise of George Steiner's novel The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. is a faithful adaptation of George Steiner’s novella. The controversial work depicts the capture of a ninety-year-old Adolf Hitler in South America by Israeli Nazi hunters. The drama concludes with a trial structured as a 25-minute monologue given by Hitler, who directs his testimony to the audience. In this extended monologue, the Führer defends his horrific and genocidal actions by comparing them to other historical events. Among the historic atrocities he cites are the Belgian massacres in the Congo, Stalin's persecutions, and the United States’s bombing of Hiroshima.

Format: Drama

Cast Size:8M/1F

Notes:

The play is published as George Steiner’s The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. For additional reading, see Gene A. Plunka, Revering the Nazis and Blaming the Victims: Three Enigmatic Holocaust Plays, Holocaust Studies 18, no. 1 (2012), pp. 73–81.

Original or Prominent Production:
Mermaid Theatre, London, February 17, 1982

Original Source Material: George Steiner’s novella The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.

Original Language: English

Publisher:

Faber and Faber, 1982 (out of print)
Also published in The Theatre of the Holocaust, v. 2, Robert Skloot, ed., University of Wisconsin Press, 1999

Experience(s) Chronicled: Germany, Hitler and the Growth of Nazism | Perpetrators, Bystanders and Collaborators