A Fox in the Ruins: Comedy and Calamity in Pursuit of a New Holocaust Theater Open Access

Abstract

For the first generation of Holocaust survivors, what they experienced was unspeakable and unnamable. The second generation of Holocaust survivors responded to the silence of their parents with mass creation--books, plays, short stories, songs, and films, both documentarian and fictional, that attempted to reckon with one of history's most unfathomable catastrophes. As a third generation Holocaust survivor, I live with the million-ton-millstone of this history on my shoulders, and yet feel that the heretofore created media does not speak to a generation desensitized by the hyper-proliferation of images brought about by the Digital Age. I therefore set out to create my own work of Holocaust representation. As the primary creative element of my thesis, I wrote and performed Yankl on the Moon, a tragi-comic one-man-play which juxtaposes the comic Jewish folklore of the "Wise Men of Chelm" with the historical realities of the Holocaust. I chose theater as my lens not only because it is my particular field of study, but because I feel that the live creation and connection inherent to theatrical performance are essential to communicating about the Holocaust in a new, vivid, transformative way. The thesis explores my use of subjectivity, comedy, and non-realistic staging conventions in Yankl on the Moon--all choices which deviate from the normative standards of Holocaust literature. My first chapter seeks to establish a theoretical and critical foundation for the incorporation of my play into the canon of Holocaust Theater--not in spite of, but because of the notable ways in which I diverge from the extant guidelines and expectations surrounding Holocaust representation. What follows is the text of Yankl on the Moon, and a short chapter reviewing the responses to and future of this overwhelmingly successful experiment.

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter
1. TOWARD A NEW HOLOCAUST THEATER: A CRITICAL FOUNDATION

• Convention and Subversion in Holocaust Representation…………………………….......1
• Why Comedy? A Survey of Comic Strategies………………...…………..………....……9
• Dark Comedy, Modern Tragicomedy, and Jewish Gallows Humor………………....…..21
• Ancient and Modern Foundations for Comedy as Response to Catastrophe.……………33

2. TEXT OF Yankl on the Moon.……………………………......…………...………...………...47
3. REFLECTIONS

• Process…………………………………………………………………………………....65
• Results………………………………………………………...………………………….71
• Future Plans………………………………………………………………………………89

APPENDIX A: ANNOTATED SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ALTERNATIVE HOLOCAUST FICTION………………………………………………………………….……..76
APPENDIX B: YANKL ON THE MOON PUBLICITY POSTER……………………………....80
BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………....…………………..81

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Theater Studies
Degree	BA
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Jewish Studies Theater
Keyword	Chelm theater laughter solo performance Holocaust comedy
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	McManus, Donald, Emory University
Committee Members	Skibell, Joseph, Emory University Evenden, Michael, Emory University Willett, Cynthia, Emory University

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