What: The Children鈥檚 Republic
Where: Belfry Theatre
When: Opens tonight (Sept. 14), until Oct. 8
Tickets: $20-$53 (plus GST)
Reservations, info: 250-385-6815, belfry.bc.ca
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When Belfry Theatre artistic director Michael Shamata invited Hannah Moscovitch to rewrite The Children鈥檚 Republic to launch the theatre鈥檚 new season, it was an offer the Ottawa-born playwright couldn鈥檛 refuse.
She had hoped to revisit her 2009 play, based on the true story of Dr. Janusz Korczak, a Polish-Jewish educator and children鈥檚 rights champion, and embraced the chance to do it when she was older and wiser.
鈥淭here is nothing like working with people between the ages of 12 and 15 to make me feel my age,鈥� Moscovitch, 39, said with a laugh. 鈥淚 was a much younger playwright when I wrote it. That was eight years ago.鈥�
The new version of her Second World War-era play, which premi猫res tonight, features four young local actors 鈥� Lily Cave, Sophia Irene Coopman, Zander Eke and Simeon Sanford Blades. They play children in an orphanage in the Warsaw ghetto where Korczak, an author and pediatrician, struggled to protect Jewish orphans before perishing with them on Aug. 7, 1942, at Treblinka extermination camp.
The play co-stars Belfry favourites Paul Rainville and Kerry Sandomirsky as Korczak and his assistant, Stefa, and features violinist Sari Alesh, a recent Syrian refugee, who provides music onstage.
Moscovitch was originally commissioned by the Ottawa School of Speech and Drama and the Great Canadian Theatre Company to write her play about Korczak because of a local connection, she said.
It was inspired by the late Leon Gluzman, an Ottawa businessman and philanthropist who grew up in a Jewish orphanage in Poland and was a ward of Korczak鈥檚 before the Nazi occupation of Poland.
鈥淗e loved the Ottawa School and his offices were above it. They met him and he loved seeing all the children. It reminded him of his childhood,鈥� said Moscovitch, who admits she had some initial creative reservations.
鈥淚 never felt that my text rose to the level of the material, and then I tried again,鈥� she said, recalling a production two years later at Toronto鈥檚 Tarragon Theatre, where she is a playwright-in-residence.
鈥淚 wanted the piece to reflect the idea of Janus Korczak, that you above all respect children and their abilities, and that you grant them as much autonomy as you can, and allow them dignity,鈥� she said.
Six years later, she finally feels that 鈥斕齱ith the technical ability she has since acquired 鈥� her text is achieving what she wanted it to, in what a friend described to her as 鈥渁 radically different鈥� version.
鈥淚t鈥檚 hard for me to tell,鈥� she confesses.
Moscovitch鈥檚 expressions of creative self-doubt seem surprising coming from an award-winning writer described as 鈥渋rritatingly talented鈥� by Eye Weekly.
Moscovitch, who last year became the first Canadian playwright to win the prestigious Windham Campbell Literary Prize administered by Yale University, has also often been called sa国际传媒鈥檚 hottest young playwright.
鈥淭here are actually a bunch of really hot playwrights in sa国际传媒 who are cleaning up internationally,鈥� she said with a laugh, rattling off a list of names including Jordan Tannahill and Kat Sandler.
鈥淭here was a period where TV was a big draw for many playwrights and they left en masse, so I may have been the only one around to praise for a while.鈥�
Moscovitch, whose noteworthy plays include The Russian Play, East of Berlin and This Is War, has also written for television, including CTV鈥檚 Played and CBC鈥檚 X Company.
While her plays often have dark themes, she said it鈥檚 just a reflection of her personal tastes, citing The Children鈥檚 Republic as one example.
鈥淚鈥檓 sort of a World War Two junkie,鈥� says Moscovitch, who read Warsaw Ghetto: The Perished City. 鈥淚t鈥檚, like, 800 pages with small print and maps of the ghetto I pulled out and put pins on.鈥�
When she was 15, she recalled, she was so fascinated by Stephen Spielberg鈥檚 Holocaust epic Schindler鈥檚 List that she saw it three times, drawing criticism from a family friend who found it 鈥渞evolting鈥� that she would do that.
鈥淪he was almost angry at me because I went to see it myself, but I was just really obsessed in the way that some teenagers are into sharks,鈥� she said.
鈥淪ometimes I feel like I鈥檇 have a lot in common if I went to a convention with people who worked in morgues,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e鈥檇 have similarities temperamentally. Because why would you do that?鈥�
Another distinctive aspect of her Children鈥檚 Republic reboot is that it鈥檚 being directed by her husband and fellow National Theatre School alumnus Christian Barry, whom she met at Tarragon Theatre.
The couple are here with their two-year-old son, Elijah, whose birth Moscovitch admits has affected her creative process.
鈥淔or the first time in my life, I occasionally wish I had read less about the Holocaust, because I鈥檓 very aware of what happened to babies, and now I have a baby,鈥� she said.
鈥淐hildren are no longer symbolic. They are real. I can imagine what it would be like as a mother, for instance, to throw your baby out the window of a train in the hope somebody would find that baby, to save a life.鈥�
As for having her husband direct her literary baby, she says they try to ask each other permission before bringing their work home, although pillow talk can sometimes be unavoidable.
鈥淲e鈥檙e somewhat disciplined, but none of that precludes the middle-of-the-night meeting,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut we also have a two-year-old who doesn鈥檛 like it when we talk about work.鈥�
