COVER STORY

Hana's Travels

Playwright Emil Sher, MA (Eng.) 92, brings the heartbreaking book Hana's Suitcase to the stage — and Concordia

By Patrick McDonagh
Fall 2007 issue: Volume 30 Number 3 Monday October 15, 2007

This is the story of a journey, and, like many journeys, it begins with a suitcase. The valise in question belongs to Hana Brady, a young Jewish girl from Nove Mesto, in the former Czechoslovakia. It bears her name and birth date — May 16, 1931 — as well as the word Waisenkind, which means "orphan" in German. It is the suitcase that in 1942 Hana filled with a sleeping bag, some food and a few keepsakes as she and her brother, George, were forcibly sent by the Nazis to Terezin — the Czech town that the Germans had renamed Theresienstadt and used as a Jewish ghetto. (Hana and George's parents had already been taken away, to their ultimate deaths.) And it's the same case that the 13-year-old took when she was again sent off, in 1944, to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland. Hana was killed the day she arrived.

But the suitcase endured, eventually to be stored along with countless other artifacts from the death camp at the Auschwitz Museum. In 2000, Hana's suitcase traveled from Auschwitz to Tokyo, where it joined an exhibit, "The Holocaust Through Children's Eyes," at the Tokyo Holocaust Center, an education centre for Japanese children.

One group of visiting children decided they wanted to learn more about "Hanna Brady" (the German spelling), whose name was inscribed on the baggage. Soon, led by museum curator Fumiko Ishioka, the children were devising ways to unearth the story of the suitcase's owner.

The account of their real-life quest forms the basis of Karen Levine's children's book Hana's Suitcase (Second Story Press, 2002), which weaves Ishioka's story with that of Hana herself. Ishioka follows one obscure clue to the next, exchanging correspondence with the Auschwitz Museum, and eventually making her way to the Terezin Ghetto Museum in the Czech Republic.

There, after hours of thumbing through archives, Ishioka learns that Hana died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. But she also discovers that her brother, George Brady, survived the Holocaust and since 1951 has been living in Toronto, where he is now retired after running a successful plumbing business.Ishioka anxiously writes to George. With his reply comes the story of Hana, along with photos and even some of her childhood drawings.

Levine's exceptional and heart-rending book has since been translated into 10 languages and transformed into a stage play written by Emil Sher, MA (Eng.) 92, and performed by Toronto-based Lorraine Kisma Theatre for Young People. And now Hana's Suitcase is coming to Concordia's D.B. Clarke Theatre this fall as part of Geordie Productions' 2007-08 theatre (mainstage) season.

Discovering Hana

Sher first learned about Hana's suitcase through the story's original CBC incarnation — Levine had written it as a short piece for the radio before realizing it could be a book in its own right. "It's a wonderful piece of children's literature," says Sher, who has two sons, 13 and 11. "After reading it over a weekend, I realized it would make a terrific stage play." As he already had a working relationship with the Kisma Theatre, he called the company's artistic director, Allen MacInnis, to suggest adapting Levine's book. By happy coincidence, MacInnis and his Kisma cohorts had been discussing the very same idea. "It was serendipity," says Sher, whose stage version premiered in March 2006. "The book transcends ages. It's been very gratifying to see the play striking a similar chord."

Sher's Concordia MA in creative writing, carried out under the tutelage of the late English professor Robert Allen, focused on short fiction. Previously, the Montreal native had studied theatre at McGill, and then taught for two years in Botswana in Southern Africa. "But I knew I wanted to focus on writing and pursued a graduate degree because it forces you to produce material," he laughs. And he has worked consistently as a writer since. His CV includes a film, Café Olé, shot in Montreal's Notre Dame de Grace district, which won a 2002 Top Ten Award from the Writers Guild of Canada; stage plays, including Mourning Dove and Beneath the Banyan Tree; and radio plays, film scripts, short fiction and essays. "Usually a story comes to me with an image and idea, and then grows," he reveals. "I'm drawn to character-driven stories. The character doesn't have to be likeable, but we are more inclined to invest in a story when it's peopled with characters we care about."

In Hana's Suitcase, "the first act is set in present-day Japan, but this world is punctuated by past events," Sher explains. "We see masked, ghost-like figures throughout the first act; Hana and her family only speak in the second act, after the Japanese children receive the letter from George Brady telling Hana's story." While Sher acknowledges that children and adults alike might be disturbed by the masks (inspired by the sculptures by George Segal at Washington's Holocaust Memorial Museum), he stresses that theatre is meant to prod brain cells into activity. While the Holocaust's death toll of six million people remains daunting, simply reciting the numbers may lessen their impact. "But to see the statistic made real is something else," he says. "When we read this story or see this actor on stage, and we have a stake in Hana's story, the outcome is just devastating for some people."

One person who could well have been devastated was Hana's brother George. "I gave copies of the first draft to George Brady, who lives 10 minutes from me, and to Fumiko Ishioka in Japan, and thankfully both gave me their blessings," he says. "I put words into the mouths of his parents which I couldn't possibly know, but George totally understands what theatre is about." Sher has since met both George Brady and Fumiko Ishioka several times, and both have sat in the audience and witnessed themselves being played by the Kisma Theatre's actors.

On the road

Since its Toronto debut, the production of Hana's Suitcase has journeyed across Canada to enthusiastic responses and is scheduled for more Canadian stops and a number of U.S. cities. Among the audience at one Toronto show was Dean Patrick Fleming, BFA (theatre perf.) 94, artistic director of Montreal's Geordie Productions.

"I was blown away," Fleming says. "Emil's script is amazing, and Allen's direction is beautiful. I knew I had to bring this play to Montreal." Geordie has historically produced four of its own shows and then imported a fifth each season, and Hana's Suitcase was a perfect fit. "As I was selecting shows to mount this season, I realized they were all based on what I had been thinking about myself: conflict and war and resolution and peace. Children have a very active relation to media and nothing is hidden from them anymore, no matter what their age. We need to talk to them about why there are people killing each other all around the world," says Fleming.

Sher and Geordie Productions first worked together several years ago, when Geordie and the Black Theatre Workshop mounted Sher's play Bluenose, a comedy about multiculturalism and racism. "I feel like Dean and his staff are giving their whole heart and soul to this production," says Sher. "It's tremendously gratifying, not only that the play is being toured, but to see how theatre companies are embracing it." Indeed, the play's touring success is all the more striking given its size. The production includes eight actors, high production values with a complex AV component, and a set large enough to fill a 15-metre truck. "It's by far the biggest show we've ever hosted in terms of scope, size and cost, and producing it is definitely a decision of the heart and not the head," says Fleming, noting that Geordie has launched a fundraising campaign to help defray the costs.

While he does not usually travel with the production, Sher plans to attend the Montreal show. "Half my heart is still in Montreal," he says. Sher's mother, a Holocaust survivor, works as a docent at the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre and Museum, and his brother Julian is a Montreal-based journalist. "I'm glad the city's community of Holocaust survivors will have a chance to see this play," says Sher. "But I'm equally pleased about the prospect of people not involved with Judaism seeing it. Fumiko and the Japanese schoolchildren are driven to uncover and ultimately preserve Hana's story because they are so divorced from her world. I love the prospect of having both francophone and anglophone audiences coming to see Hana's Suitcase, along with all those others that make up Montreal's mosaic."

Hana's Suitcase will be shown at Concordia's D.B. Clarke Theatre, 1455 De Maisonneuve Blvd. West, November 22- December 2, 2007. For more information: geordie.ca

George Brady and his daughter, Lara, have created a website devoted to Hana's story, Hanassuitcase.ca. Emil Sher's script is now published with Karen Levine's original story in Hana's Suitcase On Stage (Second Story Press). Also, visit EmilSher.com.

Patrick McDonagh, PhD 98, is a Montreal freelance writer

If you have any comments about this article, contact Howard Bokser, (514) 848-2424 ext. 3826, Howard.Bokser@concordia.ca

Please address editorial correspondence to the Editor, Howard Bokser, Howard.Bokser@concordia.ca.

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