Simon Wiesenthal was a man with a mission. “When history looks back,” he said, “I want people to know that the Nazis could not kill millions of people with impunity.” Thus, having survived the Holocaust, he devoted the rest of his life to bringing Nazi war criminals to justice. This week the award-winning solo play that explores his life and legacy, Wiesenthal, written by Tom Dugan, performed by Christopher C Gibbs and directed by Mark Liebert, makes its London premiere at the King’s Head Theatre.
Dugan is a celebrated playwright/actor based in Los Angeles, who, over 35 years, has carved a niche in the world of historical one-person plays, acquiring a reputation for the sort of meticulous research that underscores his solo shows about Jackie Kennedy, Mary Lincoln and Robert E. Lee as well as his multi-character works Cemetery Pub and Irish Goodbye. But Wiesenthal has much deeper roots in Dugan’s personal story. His father was a decorated WWII veteran who received a Bronze Battle Star, a Purple Heart and a hip full of shrapnel for his efforts. Though not there at the time, he liberated survivors from Buchenwald, where Wiesenthal had once been held.
One day, aged eight, Dugan said to his father, “You must really hate Germans.” His father’s response stuck with him. Years later, when he read in an obituary how Wiesenthal rejected collective guilt, his father’s words came back to him and he was inspired to write the play. “No. I don’t judge people by what group they belong to. I judge them by how they behave.”
Dugan was raised an Irish Catholic, but he also has a Jewish connection through his wife Amy and hence his two sons Eli and Miles. This, combined with his father’s innate tolerance and the stories he told as a camp liberator, enabled him to identify with the sentiments expressed by Wiesenthal.
Although rooted in Jewish experience, and that of the many other minorities for whom the concentration camps were opened, Dugan hopes the play (now available through Next Stage Press) will shine as ‘a beacon for all people to understand Wiesenthal and his global mission.’ Wiesenthal wished that what he had endured and subsequently achieved would not be forgotten. “For your benefit, learn from our tragedy. It is not a written law that the next victims must be Jews. It can also be other people.”
Dugan describes Wiesenthal as ‘intelligent, funny, flawed and noble… a universal hero’. His play is a tribute to the man’s dedication and tenacity to the cause he espoused and takes place on his final day in his Vienna office in 2003.
