Harlequin in the Ghetto

• Thursday 2 June 2016, 6.00PM to 9:30pm
• Adults £10, Over 60s £8, Students £5 - 0113 3432584
  Book tickets
• The Black Box, Department of Theatre, Film and Television, University of York (map|getting to campus)
• Wheelchair accessible

Event details

In the World War Two Jewish ghetto at Theresienstadt, a young prisoner named Zdeněk Jelínek wrote a play in the commedia dell'arte style about a question of urgent interest to them all:  would Harlequin, the lovable clown, escape the clutches of the Capitano? Jelínek perished in the Holocaust and his script, titled Comedy about a Trap, was thought lost until recently, when Dr Lisa Peschel located a copy saved by a survivor and preserved in the archives of a Czech theatre company.  Now two groups of students, one at York St John University and the other at the University of York, have developed new, devised performances inspired by the preserved script. The performances will explore the political commitment of the young author, the environment of the ghetto, and a question for our own day: what are we to make of a comedy written during the Holocaust?

Each evening will feature a double bill.  Performers from the University of York’s Department of Theatre, Film and Television will present the original Comedy about a Trap script each night, and the devised performances will run in repertory:

• Thursday 2 June and Saturday 4 June:  Performers from the University of York
• Friday 3 June and Sunday 5 June:  Performers from York St John University

All performances take place in the Black Box, Department of Theatre, Film and Television, University of York.) 

The purchase of one ticket entitles spectators to attend any of the four evenings.  

Pre-performance talk

On Thursday 2 June at 6pm, Professor Rebecca Rovit of the University of Kansas, currently a Visiting Senior Associate at Oxford’s Pembroke College, will present a lecture ‘Renewing a Legacy:  The Jewish Cultural League in Nazi Germany’ in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television’s Holbeck Cinema. This event is free and open to the public.  

Sponsored by Performing the Jewish Archive and the University of York's Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past.

Post-performance events

Spectators are invited to stay after the performance for a question-and-answer session with the artists.

The Thursday and Sunday performances will be followed by a wine reception.  

Performing the Jewish Archive

This event is part of Performing the Jewish Archive, a three year Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project working to explore hidden archives, uncover and perform lost works, and create a legacy for the future. For more information visit the Performing the Jewish Archive website.

Audience Filming Notice

Audiences at this event will be filmed. By attending this event, you consent to being filmed and the footage being used for a research study conducted by the University of York, including analysis by third party data analysis services. This footage will remain confidential, and your image will not be published or identified. If you do not wish to be filmed the research team will seat you in an area of the auditorium which has no camera coverage. Please refer to notices at the event for further information.

All performances take place in the Black Box, Department of Theatre, Film and Television, University of York. The purchase of one ticket entitles spectators to attend any of the four evenings.