“What we have here is a perfect combination of all the great elements necessary for a truly benchmark #EdFringe production against which all others will be measured.”

Editorial Rating: 5 Stars (Outstanding)

When we think of Greece we think of Santorini skylines, wrecked Clyde-built ships on stunning beaches, picturesque olive groves tinkling to the sound of goatbells. If you’d only watched the not-all-bad 2001 silver-screen adaptation of de Bernières’ overnight classic ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ you’d be forgiven for not knowing that the second half of the novel is a heartbreaking chronicle of Greece’s post-war civil war, one of too many chapters in which human folly and violent fragility are let slip in the cradle of Europe and paradiso descends into inferno.

As an Axis-occupied nation during the war, Greece suffered all the horrors and torments of industrial genocide. Over 80% of Greece’s prewar Jewish population was murdered. Of the 43,000 Jews in Salonika, Greece’s largest prewar Jewish community, over 40,000 perished. The numbers are similarly stark and savage in the hill town where Beni Elias and his family lived.

While attending high school in Long Beach, New York, Beni’s daughter, Jane, was assigned a 10-page, typed essay on World War II. That assignment blossomed into a nascent exploration of Beni’s journey through the war, an exploration that is currently taking #EdFringe24 by storm and with good reason. There are many great and necessary stories told in Scotland’s capital during any given August. There are many great storytellers blending their professional talent and personal insight. What we have here is a perfect combination of all the great elements necessary for a truly benchmark #EdFringe production against which all others will be measured.

Beni’s wartime story is uncomprehendable. The scale of his suffering, agonies, and terror. The continuous loss of friends and family sans dignity, sans pity, sans space to grieve in. The banality of evil. The ordinariness of suffering. The ultimate impossibility of recovering what was taken. This is a portrait of a patriarch and it is the landscape of a relationship between a regular little girl, a not atypical young woman, and her much-loved, much-admired father. Beni would have been a big figure to coexist with on whatever path life had taken him on. As a Survivor, he is lovingly painted as humanity’s human – a towering presence yes, and a toweringly infuriating figure to live with on those rare(ish) days which (occasionally) happen between us Babas and our κοριτσάκια when wires or opinions get crossed.

In this astonishingly candid, incredibly relatable tale of family drama and global catastrophe, Jane Elias has gifted something wonderful to the world. This is a script that will live forever as a testament to memories which must never be forgotten. Here is a portrait of a parent that does honour to those who went before as well as to those who were stolen before their time. Here is the best play, the best production of #EdFringe24. Here is something unmissable.

Get your coats on and go see this!

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