Woman in the Moon

Guardian
3 April 2001

Wernher Von Braun wanted to get to the moon at any cost. The cost was the lives of the 27,000 slave workers who died in Camp Dora, a secret location in the Harz mountains where, during the
second world war, Von Braun developed the technology that eventually led to the first landing on the moon. (It was the same technology that also aided the development of the mobile phone.)

Julia Pascal’s dream play makes all the connections in 75 minutes that you wouldn’t exactly describe as an entertaining night out but is brave, informative, intelligent and desperately moving. It entwines the stories of those who worked in Dora with that of Braun, who joined the Nazi party in 1937 and then became a member of the SS. In Dora where his office looked out over the courtyard where the misery - and sometimes hangings - of the slave workers took place, Braun created the V2 rockets.

After the war Von Braun avoided the Nuremburg trials by fleeing into the welcoming arms of the Americans. In the US he hosted his own Disney TV show, Tomorrowland, and was a key player in fulfilling the American dream of putting a man on the moon. Now who says justice isn’t political?

With a sterling performance from Thomas Huber as the all too plausible and charming Braun, whose ability to lie to others and himself matches that of the far better known Albert Speer, Pascal’s play puts a human face on the misery of history. She also does it in such a way that it is never sentimental but possesses a Brechtian austerity.

Wom,an in the Moon

The faceless become individuals here, from 15-year-old Rudi, who sees his family disappear into Auschwitz, to the slave worker musing on the links between 1492 and 1942: “Funny how being born in the wrong sequence of numbers makes all the difference.” It is also passionate without being partisan, and even plays devil’s advocate. “My religion is rockets and I think yours is the Holocaust,” The suave Von Braun tells a Jewish journalist who is probing his Nazi past.

The play takes a little time to gather momentum, and those unfamiliar with the second world war would do well to read the excellent programme note. But this is a dense, enlightening evening that packs a real punch in a great new space. At the very least, as you leave the theatre it will make you pause before as you go to turn on your mobile again, remembering the stories of those who died so long ago.
Lyn Gardner

Woman in the Moon

Jewish Chronicle
23 March 2001

Rocket on Target

Julia Pascal’s latest play asks searching questions about the moral price of scientific progress, writes John Nathan. It was thanks to Werner Von Braun that the Americans beat the Soviets to the moon - the same Von Braun whom the Nazi Germany had the to thank for their V1 and V2 rockets. And so Woman In The Moon, at the Arcola Theatre a converted warehouse in Hackney, links the “giant leap for mankind” of the Apollo moon landing to the most inhumane regime the world has seen.

The narrative jumps back and forth between the kitsch utopia of 1960’s America (Von Braun’s refuge from the Nuremburg trials) to Dora, the site where the rocket scientist oversaw the development of his weapons and his resulting murder of countless slave labourers who worked under him.

Pascal has a wonderful knack of finding new acting talent, and under her assured direction this fine international cast of 13 performers turns in some terrific performances, German actor Thomas Huber as Von Braun exudes a perfectly judged smug civility as he laps up the adoration of the American people, ignorant of his Nazi past.

Out of historic fact Pascal created a confrontation between von Braun and a Holocaust-survivor-turned-journalist (significantly called Dora and powerfully played by Ruth Postner), and we lurch back to her memories of Nazi persecution before her American life.

“My religion is rockets, yours is the Holocaust,” Von Braun says to his Polish-Jewish accuser.

And the harrowing, yet beautifully choreographed, scenes of life and death at Dora labour camp make full use of this atmospheric warehouse.

This is a memorable and thought-provoking work that shapes performance and ideas into a very fine theatrical event.

Hackney Gazette
22 March 2001

Dark Side of the Moon

If You live within a mile of Dalston, it is worth taking a trip down to
Hackney’s newest theatre this week. Woman in the Moon is playing at the giant, makeshift theatre which has opened up in an old clothing factory on Arcola Street. Sitting on a cushioned wooden box, beer in hand and actors in your face, you are likely to leave the performance wondering at the magnificence of mankind.

The play tells the true story of a Nazi rocket scientist who became an
American celebrity after fleeing Germany at the end of the second World War and masterminding the 1969 US moon landing.

Thomas Huber plays the likeable German scientist, Wernher Von Braun, who was welcomed with open arms by the United States. Huber is gripping as the charming Von Braun, whom we see sipping champagne with Miss America - Rachel Gaffney Greetham - and sharing his childhood dream to build rockets.

But there is a flip side to the pioneering scientist’s work. Cut to the
Germans’ Camp Dora in 1942, where Jews have been rounded up to work as slave labourers on Von Braun’s V1 and V2 rockets.

Unusually, this play manages to convince us we all have a stake in the Holocaust and it goes further than being preachy and miserable.

A large chunk of the play looks at the starving, lice-ridden Jews from across Europe trapped in Camp Dora.

Then moments of humanity creep in to make humans of the tens of thousands who paid for the technology behind the moon landing which spurned satellites and mobile phones. Bravo to the play’s writer Julia Pascal.
Stephanie Codron

Woman in the Moon