unknown addressa play based on an anti-fascist novel that was banned in 1930s Germany, will be performed by pianist Evgeny Kissin and baritone Thomas Hampson in New York tomorrow night.
Pianist Evgeny Kissin and baritone Thomas Hampson will perform in performance-only roles in the play. … [+]
The play explores the erosion of the friendship between a San Francisco Jewish art dealer (Kissin) and his former business partner (Hampson) who has returned to Germany. The story of the work is told through the correspondence between and read by the two men.
The Cherry Orchard Festival, which presents the performance at City Hall, said of the play: “In a time of austerity, recession and rising nationalism, two friends are torn apart when the Nazi regime infiltrates their friendships and families with devastating effects.Based on the best-selling book (1938), written (by Katherine Kressmann Taylor) as an anti-fascist call to arms and banned in 1930s Germany to dramatically expose the threat of Nazism, unknown address it is a timely warning of how humanity can fail in the face of extreme ideology.”
This production was presented for the first time at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland in the summer of 2022.
After the performance there will be a question and answer session with the actors.
In a recent interview, Kissin said he had originally suggested that Hampson appear with him in the production in Verbier.
Moscow-born Kissin said it's “just amazing how relevant” the play is today.
What is described in the short story on which the play is based “has been happening among people in Russia for the past few years,” he said.
He also said the events surrounding the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel make the play “timely in a different way.”
Kissin said that although he has not performed before, he has often recited poetry in public and has read poetry since childhood. “I love reciting it,” he said.
Hampson, an American who now lives in Vienna and speaks German, said playing his role in the play was “a fun challenge”.
Hampson said it is vital that “every generation” distrusts propaganda and “alternative facts” and shows “respect and tolerance for everyone around the world”.
According to an article from 2004 a poster On a previous production of the play, Taylor, an American, was a professor of creative writing and journalism at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, where she became the first woman to hold the position.
He also said Taylor's novel was reissued in 1995 to commemorate the 50thth anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps of the Second World War and which has been translated into many European languages and also into Hebrew.
The New York-based Cherry Orchard Festival works, he said, “to introduce and promote global cultural activity and the exchange of ideas.”