Thursday, February 14, 2019

review - WHO WILL CARRY THE WORD? - Grand Canyon University

the cast
photo by Tim Trumble
highlights from local critics reviews - (click link at bottom of each review to read complete review)

Click here for more information on this production that runs through February 17th.

"The horrific events of the Holocaust have been documented in countless films, novels, documentaries and plays, and just about everyone is aware of the barbaric deaths of six million European Jews were killed in Auschwitz and the other concentration camps during the early 1940s. However, not everyone knows that other people died and were imprisoned in the camps, including homosexuals, gypsies, communists, and many others who opposed the Nazi regime. Who Will Carry the Word?, written by Charlotte Delbo who was a French Resistance fighter sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943, is a factual story that focuses on a group of female French Resistance fighters who found themselves fighting for their lives in the concentration camps. Grand Canyon University's production of Delbo's play has an incredibly gifted cast who deliver rich and harrowing portrayals under Claude Pensis' precise but never too heavy-handed direction. While Delbo's personal story and the stories of the other women in the camps is heartbreaking and wrenching to hear, the play has several shortcomings that stop it from being a truly moving and emotional experience. Delbo is a good storyteller but not a good playwright....Fortunately, GCU's cast and creative aspects are superb. ..Pensis' direction is subtle but always effective...William Symington's stark and bleak set features several large fence posts and strings of barbed wire which makes the audience feel as if they are a witness to the emotional strife and stress the women endure through the electric fence, yet are unable to do anything to help..I only wish Who Will Carry the Word? were a better play in order for it to serve as a testament to the millions of people who were killed in the Holocaust and to the strength of the human spirit in those who survived who had the desire to not only live but also ensure their story was told." -Gil Benbrook, Talkin' Broadway (click here to read the complete review)

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