Escape From Camp Gurs

Arcola Theatre plays host to the world premiere of The Banality of Evil by Julia Pascal (Blueprint Medea, Crossing Jerusalem), centred around the then-33-year-old philosopher Hannah Arendt. A vital piece of political theatre grounded in extensive research and eyewitness testimonies, the production brings together elements of satire, cabaret and physical performance, to tell the overlooked stories of women who, trapped in the gears of history, would go on to become some of the century’s most important voices. 

What Is It About?

May, 1940. France falls to advancing German forces, and three German-Jewish women - future political theorist Hannah Arendt, teenage Communist Eva Daube, and artist Charlotte Salomon - are branded "undesirables" and interned at Camp Gurs concentration camp. Stranded in the very nation that had promised them sanctuary, each woman is forced to weigh up their choices; do they stay captive and hope to be saved, or risk everything to escape into the unknown?