Festival of Theatre for Social Change

The Festival of Theatre for Social Change will be held at the Derry Playhouse on Saturday 19 February 2022.

Smashing Times are delighted to present an interdisciplinary event titled The Woman is Present: Women’s Stories of WWII, a creative re-imagining of moments from the lives of two women during WWII recalling stories of bravery, sacrifice and love amidst the horror of war.

The event features a twenty-minute performance of At Summer’s End by writer Féilim James. This dramatic monologue is told from the perspective of a Jewish-Irish citizen murdered in the Holocaust. Her name was Ettie Steinberg (1914-42). We learn how at a young age her family left Eastern Europe for Dublin, before love led her away to the European mainland. This by turns tender and harrowing portrait of love, loss, and the brutality of war tells one ordinary woman’s extraordinary, and often forgotten, story.

At Summer’s End is followed by a short film screening of The Shoah: A Survivor’s Memory – The World’s Legacy, recounting the story of French woman Simone Veil (1927-2017). The Shoah is adapted by writer, theatre and film-maker Mary Moynihan from a speech delivered by Simone Veil for the second International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust, United Nations General Assembly Hall, 28 January 2007. Simone Veil was a French lawyer, politician and feminist, Holocaust survivor and first female President of the European Parliament.

The performance and film are intercut with discussion by the artists with the event followed by a Q and A with the audience to explore the role of the arts in highlighting women’s stories in history and gender equality today.

Dates and Times:

Sat 19 February, 8pm

 

Tickets £12, book here: https://www.derryplayhouse.co.uk/event/the-woman-is-present-womens-stories-of-wwii