If writing a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric, as the philosopher Theodor Adorno famously said, how about a fairytale? Can the consoling archetypes of a simple story address the Shoah? That’s the challenge in this evening drawn from a 2019 novella by Jean-Claude Grumberg, a rapt piece of storytelling delivered by Samantha Spiro.
Spiro settles on a faded armchair, opens up a big red story book and begins: “Once upon a time.” Here is a wintry forest, a childless woodcutter and his wife, a baby separated from her twin and raised as another’s. It might all lead to happy ever after if it wasn’t for the unyielding context. A train passes the forest, speeding French Jews to a concentration camp. The baby is flung from the train by her father in a desperate bid to save her. The woodcutter’s wife must protect this most precious bundle against an antisemitic husband, snooping neighbours and callous military.
