The play tells the true story of Jan Karski, both as a young Catholic courier for the Polish underground during World War II trying to stop the Holocaust and as a Georgetown professor 30 years later reflecting on the activities of his younger self.
In honor of Fathers’ Day, attendees who bring fathers will receive half off the normally $20 tickets, which can be purchased online or at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater box office.
Audrey Heller, producing artistic director of the Jewish Theatre of Bloomington, said she saw the play last summer when the Crossroads Repertory Company performed it in Terre Haute.
“I thought it was a compelling, important and true story of a Polish Catholic who selflessly put his own life on the line to try to save a people of a different religion and culture whose existence was in extreme jeopardy,” Heller said. “In this day of increasing worldwide anti-Semitism, we need to hear more stories like this.”
Martha Jacobs plays 11 different women Karski meets during his life. She said she did not know Karski’s story before reading the play, but friends told her about the importance of the book.
“We know about injustices and horrors, and we feel powerless or we turn away,” Jacobs said. “Jan Karski was one who did everything he could and did not turn away.”
John Putz portrays a number of characters in the play, from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to a French filmmaker to numerous Polish peasants. He said he found a connection with the material and his grandparents’ experiences in Romania and Siberia.
“The experience preparing for this play has been mentally draining,” Putz said. “This content spares no one from hearing the truth, maybe some things you wish you didn’t have to know but as humans you must.”
The play was funded in part by the Borns Jewish Studies Program at IU. Director Mark Roseman said the program’s mission is to support expressions of Jewish culture and experience in the wider community.
“Jan Karski, the centenary of whose birth we celebrated last year, is a unique and still not well-enough known figure from the Polish resistance who took great risks to make the world aware of the Jewish tragedy as it was unfolding in Poland,” Roseman said. “I am delighted this play will add to local knowledge of his role.”
Roseman said this play, with its themes of rescue and resistance in the Holocaust, is a valuable part of supporting productions which bear on Jewish experiences throughout history.
“I hope the audience gets the dirty, grimy, hand-in-the-dirt truth of what this man went through, what people did to overcome and maybe how who we thought were heroes maybe needed a little more coercing than we’d like to believe,” Putz said.
