Tracks of Their Tears

As an understudy for the role of Eva in productions of the Holocaust-based drama “Kindertransport,” Jennifer Buchalter found her post-performance exit from the theater an arduous task.

“It always took me an hour to get out; people needed to touch me, to talk to me,” said the 25-year-old Ventura native. “It’s such a moving show, it’s hard to get out of the theater without a good cry.”

Buchalter will reprise her role--of a German-Jewish girl sent by her parents to a foster family in England to keep her from harm’s way during World War II--in two Ensemble Theatre Company productions in Santa Barbara. The first will be Sunday through Nov. 2 at the Alhecama Theatre, the second Oct. 24 at the Lobero Theatre.

The 1995 drama, by British playwright Diane Samuels, is a fictional tale of a young girl who must endure the wrenching separation from her family and the long-term effects wrought by that dislocation. Samuels’ story is based on the real-life experiences of those involved in Kindertransport, a pre-war British government program that sent 10,000 Jewish children in Germany and Austria to safety in England. Many of those children were never reunited with their parents, while others faced great difficulties rejoining their families after many years apart.

In the case of Eva, her parents are sent to a concentration camp without her knowledge and she ultimately takes on a new identity in a new country. As an adult she is reunited with her mother, but has difficulty in adjusting.

“Kindertransport” will be staged in conjunction with the exhibit, “Anne Frank in the World: 1929-1945,” at Santa Barbara’s Karpeles Manuscript Museum. Other events related to the Holocaust, in particular, and the topic of discrimination, in general, are scheduled at various Santa Barbara County venues through Nov. 23.

Buchalter, a 1990 graduate of Ventura High School, said Kindertransport will introduce many audience members to a little-known aspect of the Holocaust.

“I think the [Kindertransport movement] is definitely a big part of the Holocaust that kind of got left out,” she said. “For me the story is about making sacrifices. If I was faced with sending my kids away or keeping them in hope, I really don’t know what I would do.”

And from the child’s standpoint the story is equally, if not more, terrifying.

Buchalter portrays Eva (who becomes Evelyn after she settles in with her English family), from the ages of 9 to 17. The role is difficult and quite emotional, Buchalter said, but exciting.

“It is so well written and tells such an important story--for me that’s part of the fun, really getting in there and creating a character from beginning to end,” she said. “For me it’s all about jumping out of my skin and into another.”

To play a character much younger than herself, Buchalter said she approached the part with the sense of vulnerability and curiosity of a young child.

“I find that the actors and the cast become parental figures in a way for me,” she said. “That all ties in with really believing how old I am. I can’t imagine what I would do at my age now if I had to go somewhere else to escape the Nazis. But to be 9 years old and not speak a word of English?”

The role is wrenching, yet cathartic, she said.

“It’s one of those plays where you kind of have to keep a handle on the line between reality and the play,” she said.

For Samuels, the story’s poignancy comes from the long-term, multi-generational anguish this sort of situation creates. That is what she hoped to capture, she said, when she wrote the story of Eva. Samuels, who has a friend whose father was part of the Kindertransport as a child, was moved by the impact the experience had on the entire family.

“She was talking about the effect that her father’s experience had on her and her insecurity in the world,” Samuels said. “I was very struck by the way children of survivors can inherit the emotional trauma of their parents. I wanted to write about how does one survive something as appalling as the Holocaust? How do future generations survive?”

Samuels, who interviewed several Kindertransport survivors for her composite Eva, also wanted her play to confront the issue of mother-daughter separation.

“There are issues and feelings that arise out of children leaving their parents,” said Samuels, who has two sons, ages 7 and 9.

“This is an extreme example, but I think it’s relative to people all the way across the spectrum--even just growing up and leaving their parents,” she said. “We all experience the issue of leaving our parents or the parents leaving, and the guilt and anger.”

“Kindertransport” has played around the world to audiences that have included Holocaust and Kindertransport survivors. Samuels said response generally has been positive and emotional.

“It does seem to touch a nerve with all sorts of people,” she said. “Some people who are not particularly moved by it tend to be people who have found the emotional content difficult. There’s a degree of not wanting to deal with that sort of emotional, icky stuff.”

Robert Grande-Weiss, artistic director of the Ensemble Theatre, said the message delivered by “Kindertransport” is universal.

“The Holocaust is certainly a part of it, but it could have been any war--it certainly has been since then--wars that separate children from their parents,” he said. “To me, it says the victims of the war are not always easy to see.”

Grande-Weiss, who will co-direct the play, said he read the story awhile back and felt it would be a good match with the Anne Frank exhibit.

“Most children would love to stay with their parents,” Grande-Weiss said. “In her way, Anne Frank was a happier child because she kept her identity and the love of her parents to the end.”

BE THERE

“Kindertransport” will be performed Saturdays at 2 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m. and Mondays at 8 p.m., Sunday through Nov. 2 at the Alhecama Theatre, 914 Santa Barbara St., Santa Barbara; $20. Reservations: 962-8606. The show also will be staged at 8 p.m. Oct. 24 at the Lobero Theatre, 33 E. Canon Perdido St., Santa Barbara; $27.50. Tickets: 963-0761.