News

"The Eichmann Trial is a play about an event that took place in Israel in 1961. But the purpose of the play is not to reconstruct the event as a history lesson. It has quite different aims: a moral, an educational and a social one that go much further. The first and most obvious is to unravel the inner mechanism of Eichmann, a human being - perhaps monstrous, but human after all - that made him commit genocide against the Jewish people of Europe. Unfortunately, this still remains a very important goal today, when even after the Second World War there have been too many cases of genocide on this planet.

(...) This play is a moral statement more necessary today than ever for the whole world." - this is how the playwright Motti Lerner defines the message of his play whose world premiere will take place at the "I.L. Caragiale" National Theatre (Atelier Hall), in the presence of the author, on October 4 and 5, 2024.

Born in Israel in 1949, Motti Lerner studied mathematics and physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, followed by theater studies in London and San Francisco, and is now one of Israel's best-known playwrights and screenwriters, including international acclaim with plays performed in the United States, England, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, South Africa, India, Australia, Italy, Austria, South Africa and Switzerland. From 1993-2008 he taught a course on Political Drama at Tel Aviv University, was a resident at the Center for Postgraduate Jewish Studies at Oxford, visiting professor at the theater department of Duke University in North Carolina, etc. Honored in 1994 with the Prime Minister of Israel's "Writers' Prize" and in 2014 with the Landau Prize for the Performing Arts.

Motti Lerner's writings deal with deeply controversial political themes, focusing on the Jewish community and the Israeli identity, including the Holocaust, Zionism, terrorism, and some biographies, in the form of documentary theater texts, which have even been the target of censorship, despite the numerous literary awards he has received.

The story of Adolf Eichmann, the Obersturmbannführer-SSS who organized and led the abominable "Final Solution" that led to the extermination of six million Jews between 1940-1945 is a well-known one. Condemned as a major war criminal by the Nuremberg Tribunal, he was sentenced to death in absentia. Captured by Mossad in Argentina, he was retried by a Jerusalem court. The public prosecution was led by Israel's first prosecutor, Gideon Hausner. Found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, Eichmann was sentenced to death and executed by hanging at Ramla prison on May 31, 1962. His ashes were scattered in the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea to avoid possible future pilgrimages.

Based on the re-enactment of the Jerusalem trial, Motti Lerner's play, and thus the performance directed by actor Mihai Calin, aims to have a profound impact on the conscience of the audience:

"One of the most agonizing questions I have had over the years in connection with the Holocaust has been: «How can this have happened?!». Many people now believe that it was a long time ago and that it has nothing to do with the present (like communism, for that matter...)" – says Mihai Calin, trying to convey a question we should all ask ourselves. Unfortunately, history repeats itself and, each time, it is the leaders who are condemned ( mostly in declarations), the embodiments of Absolute Evil: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Milošević, ...Ceaușescu...

But there is something deeper and more frightening than the EVIL personified by these monsters: the «banality of evil» of which Hannah Arendt speaks and the gears of the system's little cogs, «normal» citizens, «God-fearing» men and women, loving parents, more or less petty officials, who keep the wheels of Terror, Cruelty and Extermination turning perfectly."

A necessary lesson in history, but also a wake-up call to prevent an unfortunate repetition of it, the play The Eichmann Trial, staged with intense emotional participation by an excellent team of actors, is addressed to both adult and teenage spectators, high school students and their teachers. It is not by chance that the National Theatre's performance of The Eichmann Trial was carried out within the tnb.edu Program - a program developed out of the conviction that Theatre, by excellence an art of encounter, can complement and cover an important side in the educational process, the emotional-cognitive and direct experience.

"I am very grateful to the National Theater in Bucharest for producing the world premiere of this play" - says writer Motti Lerner, who will come to Bucharest especially to attend the first performance of The Eichmann Trial.

*We would like to point out that the initiator and supporter of the project in Romania is Mrs. Tova BEN-NUN CHERBIS, president and founder of the "Magna Cum Laude-Reut" Foundation”.

Cast: Richard Bovnoczki, Diana Dumbrava, Razvan Popa, Mihai Calin, Axel Moustache, Vitalie Bichir, loan Andrei Ionescu, Cosmina Olariu, Florin Calbajos, Emilian Oprea, Iuliana Moise, Irina Movila, Ana Ciontea, Ovidiu Cuncea, Rodica Ionescu, Andrei Finți.

Directed by: Mihai Calin. Set design: Gabi Albu. Original music: Nikita Dembinski. Video-design: Constantin Șimon. Images and video footage: Mircea I. Anca.

Translated by Andreea Codrea-Boeriu