By Sylvia Brooke
Tribune Correspondent
More than a vessel for keepsakes, the story of Hana’s Suitcase traverses years and borders, to teach a valuable lesson in a touching way. The original story, first put in book form by Karen Levine in 2002, has recently opened as a play at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People. In dramatizing Hana’s story, children young and old will learn the lessons of tolerance and hope.
The suitcase that spurred a new vehicle for studying the Holocaust and an opportunity for open dialogue began its journey as the simple receptacle of a young girl’s possessions.
Hana Brady lived a happy life with her parents and brother George in pre-war Novo Mesto, Czechoslovakia. Restrictions on the few Jews there made her world become increasingly smaller, and with both parents deported, she eventually found herself alone with her brother. An aunt and uncle, a Christian, took them in. It wasn’t long before the two children were ordered to prepare for deportation. Hana packed her suitcase with a few items, which would accompany her to Theresienstadt and eventually to Auschwitz, where her unfinished story would end.
Many years later, the suitcase would re-open Hana’s story, as it ended up in Tokyo, one of several artifacts forwarded from the Auschwitz Museum to Fumiko Ishioka, the director of the Tokyo Holocaust Centre. Encouraged by the children at the centre, Fumiko began the search for the girl behind the name, ‘Hanna Brady’ inscribed on the front of the suitcase. Her perserverance and investigating paid off and she eventually was led to George Brady, who’d survived the war and now resided in Toronto.
The play simply, yet successfully, depicts the different cultures and periods of the story, pre-war Czechoslovakia and modern-day Tokyo. Through music, set and costume, the audience is guided back and forth, between seeing Hana’s story as it unfolds in wartime, and as it is disclosed in modern day. The simple set features a set of doors, at first appearing as sliding doors, which would fit in with a typical Japanese decor. These doors are later changed to wood panelled, to better indicate a European room, circa 1940.
Suspended above the set are wires, with large pieces of ripped paper strewn amongst them. As Fumiko’s travels bring her closer to discovering more about who Hana Brady was, photos of Hana and her family are superimposed over the pieces of paper. The pieces are strung together, until they form whole pieces and the puzzle of Hana’s background has been solved.
Playwright Emil Sher enlisted the use of masks, to depict the many doomed victims around Hana, like her fellow passengers on a train ride to Auschwitz.
“The masks have no mouths,” explains Sher, indicating that they represent a people who have no voice. They have been muted.
The strong cast successfully infuses the play with the momentum of events, as Hana’s story is retold through Fumiko’s ongoing search for facts about young Hana, and any modern day connections she may have. Jean Yoon as Fumiko conveys the dedication and urgency with which Fumiko conducted her search. When at last she discovers George Brady’s name, and that he is living in Toronto, she writes him a letter explaining her position, and asking him for any information he can share with her about his sister. The letter is presented as a soliloquy by Yoon. She speaks out to the audience, imploring George for any information. It is sincere and touching.
Earlier in the play she confronts Kurt Kotouc, a former inmate with George at Theresienstadt, for any information he can give her as to George’s whereabouts. Puzzled as to what motivates this young Japanese woman to seek out George, he exclaims, “I’m still trying to understand why you have done all that you’ve done.” She answers him simply, “for the children.”
Jessica Greenberg, no stranger to the Theatre for Young People stage, poignantly portrays Hana as the happy, playful child, whose sad fate hangs over her head as the play unfolds. We witness the naivete of a child, as once interned she repeatedly pinches her cheeks, in a futile effort to look healthier and more robust.
Upon asking George Brady for his thoughts on what Hana would think of the play if she were to see it, he ponders and answers, “she would have been pleased because she accomplished what she wanted to do, she wanted to be a teacher.”
Indeed, in seeing this play, many will be taught some important messages from the past, and goals for the future.
Hana’s Suitcase is playing until April 27. For tickets, call (416) 862-2222 or check the web at www.lktyp.ca.
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