Actress Joanna Caplan as Etty Hillsum. Photo courtesy of Gina Reichert of Powerhouse Productions

Over the weekend of March 7-8, Power House Productions and The Hinterlands (both Knight Arts grantees) co-hosted the first weekend of performances at Play House, a newly completed performance space on the Detroit/Hamtramck border. The inaugural production was “Total Verrückt,” a one-woman show starring actress Joanna Caplan from the Double Edge Theatre Company in rural Massachusetts.

“Total Verrückt!” is based on the writings of a young Dutch detainee named Etty Hillesum, whose diary was discovered along the train tracks between Westerbork and Auschwitz. Hillesum’s writing details life in German-occupied Amsterdam, as well as the daily trials and triumphs of life at Westerbork, where a wide cross-section of the Jewish creative community was detained. Developed with Double Edge Theatre director Matthew Glassman over two years during Caplan’s residency and training with theater group, the play continued to evolve over a subsequent two and a half years of intermittent touring. The work originated out of Caplan’s own exploration of her Jewish identity, and the understandably heavy subject matter is presented through the context of a cabaret performance.

Caplan learned many elements of cabaret performance as part of the Double Edge Theatre curriculum. Photo courtesy of Gina Reichert of Powerhouse Productions

Though the idea of cabaret may seem a bit lightweight in contrast to the Holocaust, it was the prevalent nightlife culture of late Weimar Germany, and even mainstream shows such as “Cabaret” have leveraged this performance style as the entry point into dealing with the dawning horror of Nazi regime. Indeed, cabaret’s format enables sly commentary, and editorializing in the form of song or monologue are often juxtaposed with provocative dancing—sort of a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. “Total Verrückt!” makes no bones about addressing life inside Westerbork head-on; the set, for instance, centers around a railroad-track elevation and is framed by barbwire fences. It comes as a charming surprise, then, as Caplan ricochets around the complex stage in an explosion of song, dance, strip tease and, climactically, straps herself into a four-point ceiling mount for an aerial gymnastics act of human marionette proportions.

Caplan prepares to go aerial, within the newly-finished gorgeous interior of the Play House space. Photo courtesy of Gina Reichert of Powerhouse Productions

As director Matthew Glassman highlighted in his introduction, even in some of the harshest and most inhumane circumstances, art serves to liberate its practitioners, and ultimately allows them to live beyond the confines of their mortal experience. Their spirit is alive and well in Joanna Caplan, and “Total Verrückt!” made a deep impression during its brief stop in Detroit.

Upcoming at Play House. Image courtesy of artist Kelly Sears

This Saturday, March 14th at 8 p.m., Play House will host “Failure: Experimental Animation by Kelly Sears,” presented by Mothlight Microcinema.

The brand new Play House is located at 12657 Moran St., Detroit. For more information, event schedules and updates about Play House, visit thehinterlandsensemble.org or powerhouseproductions.org.