Written by Isaac Rosen, Marketing and Communications Manager at AJR
Some families come apart at the seams fighting over the fate of grandma’s money. But what if, instead of a family fortune or an estate of heirlooms, the source of that undoing was granny’s priceless memories?
Thornier yet, what if those memories were recollections of the Holocaust and they belonged to the very last survivor?
This conundrum of inheritance, testimony, and responsibility lies at the heart of Memoriam, a wonderful new play by Noga Flaishon which had its London debut at the Southwark Playhouse last month. Set in the near future, the Black Mirror-esque drama subtitled “a new play about never forgetting” centres on a company called Memoriam which boasts cutting edge technology for extracting and repackaging human memories as virtual reality experiences. Mind you, these aren’t just video clips. They’re full, sensory immersions into the rememberer’s mind and body.
When Rachel, a young Jewish woman working at Memoriam, finds out that her bubbe Rivka is the last living witness to the horrors of the Holocaust, she decides she must try to turn Rivka’s memories into one of Memoriam’s “premium assets.” After all, to canonise such a memory would make history. And Rachel’s career.
But a memory of the Holocaust is no mere life cycle milestone like the childbirths and engagement dinners with which Rivka’s eyewitness account would share the digital shelves on Memoriam’s servers. It would be a powerful, piercing testimony to the worst atrocity of the 20th century, far too much for the average viewer to handle and ripe for disrespectful disuse amidst rising antisemitism and Holocaust denial.
Rachel’s brother David is appalled that she would even ask. Bubbe Rivka questions the purpose of immortalising such barbarity when she herself would simply rather forget. The story has already been told, anyways — why should Rivka suddenly be held responsible for the burden of remembrance, all on account of her lucky longevity? Rachel is caught in the crossfire, grappling with obligation to family and faith, obligation to her slick-talking boss (“this is good for humanity, Rach — people forget but data never does!”), obligation to the future generations who will have no survivors left to share their stories first hand. Alongside the family drama swirl a slew of difficult considerations: the fine line between commemoration and commerce; how new technologies like AI are distorting our relationship to truth and testimony; whether the Hollywoodization of Holocaust stories is a worthy, noble aspect of remembrance or has only managed to undermine the brutality of history.
Across 100 riveting minutes, Memoriam’s audience must confront all of these questions and perspectives as the play’s twists and turns bring new information to light. Each revelation adds yet another knotty caveat to the “never forget” mantra — a simple phrase, difficult in practice. Only by the play’s end is there any clarity on what decision one should make in such a position.
As a third generation descendant myself, I found Memoriam incredibly entertaining, not to mention deeply poignant and relevant to my own life as the inheritor of a Holocaust legacy. My grandfather Robert S. Rosen, an Austrian Kindertransport refugee, died when I was too young to know him well. I know his story but was never allowed the chance to hear it from him. To witness his experience intimately would be a difficult privilege, yet to see it distorted at the hands of an entertainment corporation — its conniving contracts and trim-happy editors — would surely taint the true value of his testimony. But perhaps if he was still with us and was the last remaining survivor, I’d have to weigh what his memory in any form would be worth: to my own identity and to the future of the world.
Staged on a tastefully minimalist set which the five person cast (including Olivier Award Nominated Beverley Klein as Rivka) command with poise and ease, Memoriam is a must-see for any AJR members. The play runs only until 21 November, so “Never forget” while you still can.
Click here for information and tickets.
