UC Irvine

This project is about the multilayered landscape of Holocaust performance. It addresses the performance of memory, loss, memorial and theatrical representation as an inquiry into the nature of the Holocaust’s traumatic legacy and its ongoing importance in defining Jewish community and identity in the twenty-first century. The project particularly focuses on how loss manifests itself in various performances of memory that seek to address the event’s irrecoverable experiences. As such, it looks at performance in its many facets, covering the terrain of psychological performance regarding memory, trauma, mourning and witnessing, historical and contemporary theatrical performances, and the physical space of memorialization. The project’s discussion of Holocaust loss follows the trajectory set out in its title as it moves from the “survival anxieties” surrounding Holocaust memory and its legacy, to “traumatic performance” in an analysis of historical Holocaust theater and contemporary Holocaust drama, and the “stages of memory” existing in both the physical arena of Holocaust memory and the temporal stages marking its passing. It also addresses the loss of the final generation of Holocaust survivors and aims to begin a conversation around the inheritance of a legacy of loss, particularly as experienced by third generation descendants, or grandchildren, of the survivor era who witness this loss as they come of age.

The project’s central analysis lies in the study of theater and performance during the Holocaust and contemporary dramatic texts that speak to the act of Holocaust performance and the difficulty of portraying an event so steeped in its traumatic aftermath. Therefore, the testimonies, plays and memorial sites discussed all rely on forms of layered performance and concealment to talk about the loss they represent. In itself, the project inherently conceals the experience it seeks to document, as proven by my performance of sifting through the materials I discuss, making its framework integral to its performance of analysis and how it contains the unnameable quality of the loss it examines. The project ultimately moves towards a conscious understanding of the implications of Holocaust loss on its descendant generations and the anxieties that accompany searches into its memories and experiences.