In the Riffe Center’s Studio One Theatre, Jeff Daniel’s comedic play, “Escanaba in da Moonlight,” was winding down its Contemporary American Theatre Company run. In the Riffe Center’s Studio Two Theatre, CATCO began the run of its newest play Friday, the dramatic and depressing “Kindertransport,” about a Jewish girl fleeing Nazi Germany on the children’s trains in 1939.
Quite a juxtaposition.
But CATCO successfully pulls off another production, despite the ever changing style within its theaters. “Kindertransport” tells the story of Eva (Molly Camp), a 9-year-old Jewish girl who is sent to England by her parents to escape the iron fist of Adolf Hitler, but that is only half the play.
The other half centers around Faith (Mandy Bruno) and Evelyn (Amy Warner), a mother-daughter duo going through their attic for basic supplies for Faith’s new apartment in the 1980s. During the rummage, Faith finds an old book, “The Ratcatcher,” and some letters belonging to Eva.
Both stories run simultaneously, as Eva’s troubles adjusting to her new home with her foster mother Lil (Kerry Shanklin) overlap with Faith trying to cope with her mother’s secret past life (Lil is also Faith’s grandmother).
Debuting in their first CATCO plays, Bruno and Camp both bring a youthful na ïvete to the production, but it blends nicely with the story. Faith is rebellious and inquisitive and Bruno portrays both feelings nicely. Camp isn’t quite as successful as Bruno in the role of Eva — her over-the-top performance feels a bit strong for the role, despite Eva’s vocal nature — but she shows the potential these types of professional productions may nurture into greatness.
Warner, who has appeared on both stage and screen — she’s guested on “Boston Public,” “ER” and “The Practice,” among others — projects magnificence in her blend of maturity and brattiness. The transformation Warner goes through as her daughter confronts her with the truth about her past is wonderfully vivid.
As Helga, Eva’s real mother, and the Ratcatcher, Anne Diehl and Ted Amore bring strength and wisdom to their smaller, but important roles.
Despite all of these strong performances, it’s Shanklin who steals the show in a role that could have easily been a disaster. During the meat of the play, Lil makes the transition from talking to Eva in the 1930s and ’40s to speaking to her granddaughter in the attic in the ’80s. Sometimes Shanklin is forced to make the transition in an instant, moving from up stage (usually where Eva’s story plays out) to down stage (Faith’s more attic-like setting).
Because author Diane Samuels wrote the play over 10 years ago — it debuted in London in 1993 — it isn’t surprising the story and dialogue are fresh and the play doesn’t lag in any places, although the audience’s need for tissues is overexaggerated (we were told we would need tissues by the end fo the play). While the story is quite realistic, it’s not emotional enough to spark tears — the Holocaust merely serves as background for the story about family relationships.
Although the plethora of accents and lines in German may distract from the emotional depth of the story, “Kindertransport” will rank alongside “The Laramie Project” as one of CATCO’s more touching plays.
