In 2007, a mysterious album featuring Nazi-era photographs arrived at the desk of a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum archivist. As curators unraveled the shocking truth behind the images, the album soon made headlines and ignited a debate that reverberated far beyond the museum walls. Based on real events, Here There Are Blueberries tells the story of these historical photographs—what they reveal about the perpetrators of the Holocaust, and our own humanity.
The comparison is pungent but inapt: Archival work is not death work. Likewise, a play is not a museum. That’s part of why, while admiring Tectonic’s intentions and technique in “Blueberries” — not for nothing was it recently named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in drama — I find it even more unbalanced today than I did when I saw it last year in Washington.
For a historian or student of World War II, such details will not be surprising—or new. Audiences who prefer a dramatic treatment of similar material can stream Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, which fixes an unnervingly calm eye on the home life of Rudolf Höss, the commandant of Auschwitz. (The movie’s loosely based on a Martin Amis novel but overlaps with the Höcker album.) Even though at times Here There Are Blueberries seems less a play than a live PBS documentary (and, at worst, an infomercial for the Holocaust Museum), it’s still a compelling 90 minutes. That’s down to strong cast, anchored by the luminous Stahlmann, a grimly determined angel bringing light and a sword into darkness. Derek McLane’s spare but effective scenic design—work desks and screen—neatly cradles David Bengali’s elegant projection design, integral to the impact. In the end, the piece asks what the camera caught and what it excluded. We have seen the carnage of the death camps. That ultimate horror is the result of countless steps from everyday civility to desensitized inhumanity.
2024 | Off-Broadway |
NYTW Off-Broadway Premiere Production Off-Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2024 | The Pulitzer Prize | Pulitzer Prize for Drama | Moisés Kaufman |
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