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A new play by Raymond Raszkowski Ross for Theatre Objektiv - premiered at Edinburgh International Festival Fringe 2009 - about a quiet but dedicated woman, who unintentionally became one of the 20th century’s greatest Scots - Jane Haining, sometimes referred to as ‘the Scottish Schindler’ because of her achievement in saving dozens of Hungarian Jewish children from the gas chambers.
As the play opens Rivka Feldman, a Holocaust survivor and Jane’s friend, is under interrogation by a British Captain. She has entered Scotland illegally, armed with a gun.....
Rivka’s fictional story takes us back to Budapest and to Auschwitz where Jane paid the ultimate price for protecting children. Not without irony or humour, this is a play about hope and reconciliation which raises many issues of relevance today in a challenging way through a controversial story.
Shortlisted for Amnesty International Theatre Award, Fringe 2009
(Not suitable for children under 12)
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A PROMISED LAND on tour Autumn 2010
Thursday 16th September - matinee performance for schools and evening performance at Paisley Arts Centre
Friday 17th September - evening performance at East Kilbride Arts Centre
Saturday 18th September - evening performance at The Wynd, Melrose
Wednesday 22nd September - evening performance at macrobert, Stirling
Saturday 25th September - evening performance at Universal Hall, Findhorn
Wednesday 29th September - evening performance at The Byre Theatre, St Andrews
Friday 1st October - evening performance at The Swallow Theatre, Whithorn
Saturday 2nd October - evening performance at The CatStrand, New Galloway
Wedesday 6th & Thursday 7th October - evening performances at Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh
Saturday 9th October - evening performance - Woodend Barn Arts Centre, Banchory
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REVIEWS OF A PROMISED LAND
As I've noted before, tales of the Holocaust are generally two a penny at the Fringe, usually decrying the horrors of the death camps and the persecution of the Jews to show us the struggle of humanity in the face of unspeakable evils. Turning away from any such standard fare Theatre Objektiv have opted for a more interesting angle to great effect.
Set in 1947, A Promised Land tells the story of Rivka Feldman, a Jewish Pole who has arrived in Edinburgh after illegally stowing away on a ship, carrying a gun. She is interrogated by a British Captain, tasked with finding out who this woman is and what relation she may or may not bear to Jewish dissidents in Israel and the UK.
At the same time we are told the story of a Scottish Missionary, Jane Haining, immured in Auschwitz after protecting Jewish children in Budapest. The actors, Corinne Harris and John McColl, seamlessly alternate between the parts and locations, with Harris effortlessly portraying the dual parts of Haining and Feldman as very different individuals tied with a shimmer of hopeful humanity in the face of shared horror, Feldman representing the stoic aftermath and Haining a more hopeful yet fragile naivety. McColl equally impresses with the far less sympathetic but more constructively layered character of the Scottish Captain, whose murky past points at prejudices and conflicts within himself that he strugges to control.
It's a surprisingly measured performance in which there are no clear rights and wrongs, instead we are given a powerfully beautiful and very real story of courage and survival and the world's inability to fully comprehend the full measure of the damage caused on an entire generation's psyche. Graeme Strachan - The British Theatre Guide
"This is an exemplary piece of Fringe theatre, which demonstrates how brilliant dramatic art can be, created with a sparse set, few props and just two outstanding actors.
The latter move fluidly through time and space: beginning as a Jewish refugee and a tormented British officer, they move backwards to become a Nazi interrogator and a Scottish missionary arrested in Budapest.
Particularly notable is the scene they play out at Auschwitz, which is quite the tear-jearker.
Such emotionally demanding roles might easily have descended into cheap melodrama, but a tightly constructed, perceptively-written and well-balanced script ensures that this is not the case.
Politically engaged from the outset, though this hard-hitting human drama ends abruptly, it is, nonetheless, well worth seeing."
Rahim Rahemtulla - Three Weeks
"It's not often that a play has the almighty power to make an audience cry. A passionate round of applause is something a rarity and even then it is not usually followed through by all members of the audience. It was, therefore, deeply moving to witness the effect that A Promised Land had on its audience....
The performances by the two leads are extraordinary. Overwhelmingly passionate at times, clearly believing in what they are doing, which is a wonderful thing to behold. A lot of what I have seen on the Fringe this year have come across more as a job, but this was something that the two actors believed in. Their souls were firmly in it and burnt like fire in their eyes.
The play is intelligent, funny and heartfelt.........A Promised Land is storytelling at its very best. A powerful experience."
Alex Eades - Edinburgh Guide
"Thought provoking......much originality and skilful performances from Corinne Harris as two very different women.....moments of joy and understanding amid the horror and mistrust."
Laura Ennor - The List
"VERY few Scots met their end in the death camps of the Holocaust but one of them was teacher and missionary Jane Haining, who was transported to Auschwitz in the early years of the Second World War after refusing to abandon her post as the supervisor of a Budapest orphanage for destitute Jewish children.
Raymond Raszkowski Ross’s new play seeks to remember Jane’s life through her relationship with a fictional character, Rivka Feldman, whom she meets in Auschwitz. In the play, Rivka has arrived in postwar Scotland to make a promised pilgrimage to Jane’s home, but finds herself arrested and interrogated as a Jewish terrorist because she is carrying a gun.
The play therefore moves backwards and forwards between Rivka’s interrogation in Scotland, Jane’s interrogation in Hungary, and a scene in Auschwitz between Jane and Rivka’s brother, with Corinne Harris making a beautiful job of playing both women, and John McColl as all the men.
........a strong, moving and enjoyable piece of drama, performed with great commitment, and directed with sober intelligence and feeling by the Storytelling Centre’s boss, Donald Smith."
The Scotsman
A Promised Land NEWS RELEASES
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Walking with Shadows by Josef Tarnowski and Raymond Raszkowski Ross
Walking with Shadows is a book of exile and odyssey: the incredible and moving story of Josef Tarnowski, a young Polish freedom-fighter who survived the frozen hell of the war-time Soviet Gulag and travelled half-way round the globe to join the Free Polish Forces in Scotland.
He became a paratrooper and fought through the bloody slaughter of Arnhem, then a soldier-policeman among the ruins of the Third Reich, a ‘displaced person’ struggling to build a new life in post-war Britain and a successful electronics engineer whose pioneering work took him round the world again, and back to Poland, in very different circumstances.
This is the story of an idyllic childhood, of family and friends lost and found, of war and peace, love and hope, tragedy and renewal. One man’s story, it is also the story of the old Europe, which passed with the Soviet Empire, and the new Europe, heralded by the rise of Solidarnosc. The story of a family man, a man of wit, insight, irony and humour, Walking with Shadows is a celebration of the will to survive and to keep creating afresh, an inspiring tribute to the human spirit.
Walking with Shadows is available online from www.glenmurraypublishing.co.uk.
Hamish Henderson Collected Poems and Songs
Edited with an introduction by Raymond Ross
Hamish Henderson is one of the most interesting, not to say outstanding, voices of 20th century Scotland. His poetry, by its very nature, evokes much that is vital to Scottish and European History, society and culture.
These are poems of lyrical intensity and gentle humour, of subtle irony and satirical intent, of profound humanity and, on occasion, of cold steel. Henderson writes, with fire in his belly and love in his heart, of war and peace, of the Highland, urban and desert landscapes, of the footslogging swaddie and the resistance hero, of childhood memories and erotic encounters, of pain, love, regret and death. And of hope.
But perhaps the underlying and unifying concern is faith: faith in ordinary humanity to pull through whatever the odds. Of the many outstanding poets 20th century Scotland has produced it is perhaps Henderson, above all the others, who gives voice to that ordinary humanity in its quest for survival and for better days.
Hamish Henderson's Collected Poems & Songs (Curly Snake Publishing, 2000, paperback, £9.99) is now being distributed by Glen Murray Publishing. Copies can be bought online at www.glenmurraypublishing.co.uk.
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