At first, even playwright Neena Beber was a little skeptical. After all, the 60-page diary of Rutka Laskier, a 14-year-old Jewish girl living in Poland in 1943, might not seem like the ideal subject for musical theater. But after hearing the music composed by Jocelyn Mackenzie and Jeremy Lloyd-Styles – music that Beber said has “a very moving quality” – she realized how it “fitted perfectly with the spirit of the book”. NOW Rutka makes its world premiere at Cincinnati Theater in the Park (until November 10), with Beber on the book and Mackenzie and Lloyd-Styles on the music and lyrics, beginning a journey with Broadway in its sights.
The source of the musical is Rutka’s Notebook: A Voice from the Holocaustpublished in 2006, which documented the months leading up to Laskier’s death in a concentration camp. Despite the setting, there is a sense of hope in the story, Beber and director Wendy C. Goldberg said, as we see teenagers growing up and thinking about how to cope with the world around them. They see this spirit manifested in what Goldberg calls “indie rock protest music,” echoing the spirit of young people who don’t want to let happy, fleeting moments pass them by.
“They’re just kids, experiencing their first crush and their first opportunity to spend time independently with friends,” Goldberg said. “So there they are, trapped in this environment and still trying to do these things in these circumstances.”
Speaking in mid-July, Beber sat with a stack of about 10 Holocaust newspapers taken from a list at the end of Rutka’s notebook. In the newspapers, Beber said he saw stories filled with “emotions and rawness” that come with youth. In addition to being a testament to the atrocities of the Holocaust, Beber said, the newspapers were themselves an act of resistance.
“There is so much strength and so much love in these journals,” Beber said. “There is a sense that the arts create our capacity for empathy and hope, and Rutka resists by writing. She wants us to remember it because we feel that if we confront history, maybe we can make a difference. We should not forget these things that have happened as we create the future of our world.
Jerald Raymond Pierce (he/him) is the editor-in-chief of American theater. jpierce@tcg.org
