View the 2019 Witness Theater Production - “The Art of Living”
This year our group performed 4 shows - two at Yeshivah of Flatbush, Joel Braverman High School, one at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, and one at Kingsborough Community College. The 4 shows reached audiences totaling over 2000 people, while over 1000 people viewed the live stream!
Audience Reflections:
“It was by far one of [the] best in its poignancy, creativity, originality and impact.”
“What a fitting and memorable tribute to the survivors and their stories. As a grandchild of Holocaust survivors, I know how meaningful it is for them to feel secure that future generations “never forget”, while still enjoying the art of living every day to its fullest. “
“During the performance I was simultaneously sobbing tears of sadness as the stories unfolded and bursting with pride at the Yeshivah’s stewardship of this program.”
“The stories, the dialogue, the acting, the interaction between the survivors and the students, it was all so captivating. You could hear the audiences moan, sigh, and even stifle a sob as they were drawn into the story so movingly portrayed by the survivors and the students. “
Director’s Note:
While inevitably confronted with tragic stories of the past, this year’s Witness Theater group also faced tragic stories in the present – destructive natural disasters, senseless violence in Israel, the Pittsburgh shooting, and the loss of our very own Sally Fliegelman - a survivor from our group who we loved like family. Emotions ran high and each week we found ourselves clinging to each other for support, both literally and figuratively.
But while some may fall victim to despair in the face of death, our group chose to focus on LIFE. We began to ask, “What does it mean to LIVE?” and we found the answer was right there with us in the room – in the legacy of Sally, as well as in the lives of Miriam, Klara, Emiliya and Fred. Suddenly the concept of living took on a whole new meaning. “To live” became an act of doing, rather than a passive state of being. To live was not simply to be alive, but rather, to seize each moment and to fill it with meaning. To live was to laugh, to learn, to create, to connect, to love, to enjoy, to accomplish, to get involved, to experience, and the list grew each week, inspired by survivors who had truly LIVED their many decades.
We soon realized that real LIVING is actually a form of art. That it is a creative process in which no two outcomes are the same. That LIVING involves picking up the symbolic “paintbrush” and making decisions about what to put on our life’s blank canvas.
Continuously inspired by the survivors and, in particular, the art and teaching of our renowned painter, Fred Terna, we dove into the metaphor of the blank canvas. We asked what the blank canvas represents and how it relates to our own selves. We considered how it is symbolic of the Witness Theater process and found ourselves wondering, in our group, who is the canvas and who is the painter?
Over the last few months our canvases have become filled with color. We have learned that with paint we can create layers, and texture, and depth. We have learned that there are times in life when we need to start over, when we make mistakes. We have learned that when we are willing to offer ourselves as blank canvases for other people, some of the most remarkable and unexpected relationships can be designed. We have learned that beautiful mosaics can be formed from shattered stereotypes.
In Witness Theater we have become life’s painters as well as life’s canvasses. And we have learned that within the delicate layers of our selves lies our ability to connect, to heal, and to create our greatest life’s art.