When Barbarism Meets Technology

Wiesenthal – The True Story of Nazi-Hunter Simon Wiesenthal – North Shore Center for the Performing Arts

North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie has kicked off their Feature Series Summer 2019 Season with “Wiesenthal – The True Story of Nazi-Hunter Simon Wiesenthal.” Tom Dugan takes the stage in a tour de force performance with a production that exhibits uniformity in quality across the board: material, performance, stagecraft, and motivation. I am planting a seed in your mind that you should purchase tickets now because there are only performances June 27th through June 30th, and I will reiterate it later in case you have forgotten. 

Simon Wiesenthal (pronounced VEE-ZEN-TAL) was an Austrian-Jewish man who survived the Holocaust in World War II and devoted the rest of his life to tracking down Nazi war criminals and bringing them to justice. He helped find and bring to trial over 1,100 war criminals and shared his message of tolerance and his opposition against collective guilt at his Jewish Documentation Center in Vienna, Austria. Thus, our show begins with a man who is packing up his life and his life’s work: a life that he lived in honor of those who had their own lives torn from this world. 

The catalyst for this one man show (written and performed superbly by Tom Dugan) is Wiesenthal’s last day before retirement in April of 2003. Dugan addresses the audience as a group that he is teaching for the last time, which validates the one person reflective show. While performances of an older man recounting the days of his youth can become inactive and stale, this tale does not fall into that trap. Dugan’s attention to facts in writing the piece and his energy and drive in performing it kept the material from becoming maudlin or saccharine. Director Jenny Sullivan crafted a meticulous play with Dugan that dove from memory into memory, from phone calls to dad jokes, and back to Wiesenthal’s pleas for us to remember the past as a means to protect our future. Aforementioned phone calls and re-enactments (set apart by isolating spotlights) serve to break up the stream of recollections, and keeps the dramatic tension of the piece driving until the end. 

It was a feat of crafty costumes, stark and unforgiving light, and the immense talent of Dugan that allowed him to physically transform into Wiesenthal. Dugan, a vibrant and agile man, shuffles around the stage (Wiesenthal’s office consisting of a map of Germany, boxes in various stages of packing, filing cabinets, and a single sunflower in a vase) as a 95 year-old man with a bad leg and a missing toe on one foot. He must be applauded (for many things, but in this particular instance) for juggling the tasks of exuding focused energy and a wicked sharp mind encased in a body that is aging and slowing down. If you still think that perhaps this evening would be a downer, I present Dugan’s comedic skills in portraying Wiesenthal’s humor, noted by everyone who knew him. The evening is sprinkled with unabashed “dad jokes” because Wiesenthal himself was an amateur standup comedian before World War II. His wit and humor allows for times of brevity, but also serves as his own coping mechanism and supplements his appeals to the coming generations to not let justice slip by due to apathy.  

From the minute he steps on stage, there is a timer going. Wiesenthal is working against the clock in his life, hounding justice. On his last day, as he documents World War II to us and continues to call hotels and newspapers, the imminence of his personal denouement stirs up fears, feelings, and longings within his heart and mind. Is he going to finish his last project? Is he going to ask the final question that he has forgotten to ask, and therefore has forgotten to answer? You’ll have to see this limited run (back by popular demand from last season) to find out for yourself. To finally impart the relevance of this man’s story, cause, life, and work, I will leave you with one of his quotes: 

“Hatred can be nurtured anywhere, idealism can be perverted into sadism anywhere. If hatred and sadism combine with modern technology the inferno could erupt anew anywhere.”

—Simon Wiesenthal

“Wiesenthal – The True Story of Nazi-Hunter Simon Wiesenthal” runs from June 26th to June 30th. Thursday evening’s production runs at 7:30 pm, Friday and Saturday start at 8 pm, and matinees on Saturday and Sunday begin at 2 pm. Following every performance, there will be a talkback and Q and A session with Tom Dugan, joined by Sean Tenner, Rev. Johnson, and Alison Pure-Slovin (all from the Simon Wiesenthal Center) on selected evenings. 

The performance runs one hour and forty minutes without an intermission at North Light Theatre space in the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, Illinois (9501 Skokie

Boulevard, Skokie, Illinois, 60077) Tickets range from $40 to $50 and are available at the North Shore Center box office, www.NorthShoreCenter.org, or by calling (847) 673-6300. 

For more information, visit theatreinchicago.com, as well. 

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Sophie Vitello