Winter 2023 newsletter

2024

To honour Holocaust Memorial Day 2024 there will be a staged reading of Theresa by Julia Pascal on Sunday 28 January 2024 7.00pm at Burgh House, NW3 1LT.

Ruth Posner as Theresa

Julia Pascal’s controversial play Theresa smashed the myth that collaboration with the Germans could never have happened in Britain. It exposed how the Channel Islands’ government collaborated with the occupying Germans and betrayed Jews on the Island to the Nazis. 

Theresa is based on the true story of Viennese refugee Theresia Steiner who was gassed in Auschwitz after being deported from Guernsey. 

The drama spotlights a reluctant history which shows the only British territory to be invaded by the Nazis and how the Channel Islands adopted the Nazi Race Laws. It exposes large-scale governmental collaboration headed by the Bailiff Willam Carey.

Theresa is banned in Guernsey. It toured the UK, France, Germany and Austria over two decades. As The Road to Paradise it was broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

This is your chance to see it.


­Pascal Theatre Company’s Lottery Heritage Funded project Women for Women continues:

Fanny Eaton 
Original drawing by Anne Sassoon

This major project has unearthed more and more women whose histories have been blanked. We are receiving tributes to them which enrich Bloomsbury and British history. It is shocking how many women’s lives have been eradicated. Painstaking research reveals the importance of their fight for equality. We started. We go on. And on..

Read about women we should all know about:

Sarah Parker Remond
Original drawing by Anne Sassoon

WOMEN FOR WOMEN: Spring 2024
We have a programme of events organised for International Women’s Day/Women’s History Month: March 2024. This will include talks aimed at diverse audiences, walks and talks and the launch of a bench to commemorate 19th century women in Bloomsbury.


Workshops

Why does Heritage matter?   

Why do we want to celebrate it?

Sophia Jex-Blake

Heritage is not the past: it is still part of our present. We are looking at 19th century women who changed our world. They became doctors, lawyers, actors, explorers, inventors. It was they who banged the door open even if today it is still a door that needs removing from its hinges.In This summer and autumn we held workshops for a diverse group of volunteers and showed them how to use a community space to excite new audiences to learn about these neglected women.

Bloomsbury Festival 2023: An Unsuitable Job for a Woman!
A dance-theatre performance written and directed by Julia Pascal

Our 2023 workshops prepared volunteers to perform in the Bloomsbury Festival.

For this we were joined by students from London Contemporary Dance School and undergraduates from St Lawrence University’s Study Abroad program as well as a Polish dancer to produce An Unsuitable Job for a Woman!

The performance, at the Royal National Hotel in the Bloomsbury Festival, attracted audiences from diverse backgrounds. people who were curious to see how dance theatre can reveal hidden histories.

Responses:

‘Julia worked in a way that drew out the unique skills of each performer and she invited collaboration amongst the group. By intergrating many art forms, I feel we were able to tell the women’s stories in a dynamic, accessible and entertaining way.’ (Nadya)

‘Brilliant, shocking, moving, enlightening, hilarious …history which we should all know about …stunning choreography – extraordinary! …brought alive a kicking searing historical episode which I found fascinating and very moving.’ (audience)

‘Important work to be seen by a wider audience.’ (audience)

Please contact us if you would like to discuss workshops at your college or university or get involved in research or events.

Pascal Theatre Company Winter/Spring Newsletter 2023

Coming Up in 2023

As Happy As God In France

Burgh House 26 January 2023

We will mark Holocaust Memorial Day 2023 with a semi-staged reading of AS HAPPY AS GOD IN FRANCE by Julia Pascal, which explores a little known incident in the life of  German Jews Hannah Arendt, Charlotte Salomon and Eva Daube in the chaotic weeks between Armistice and Occupation. 

Supported by the Cockayne Foundation and the London Community Foundation.

Line drawing by Anne Sassoon.

Book here

Spring 2023: A Manchester Girlhood

Touring the Northwest:

The Old Electric Theatre, Blackpool, 20 April 2023 

Jewish Museum, Manchester, 23 April 2023

And in London:

JW3, London, 21, 22, 23 May 2023

An exploration of a Romanian Jewish family’s journey to early 20th century Manchester and the journey of three girls into mature women over the major events of time.  The play, written and directed by Julia Pascal, focuses on three daughters, bonded and divided by competition, war, love and jealousy.

Learn more

Women for Women Continues

Women for Women

19th Century Women in Bloomsbury

Why are so many 19th century innovators hidden from mainstream history? Because they are women? Why have they been written out of traditional narratives? We are working to redress this in our project. We thank academics and writers who are contributing stimulating profiles championing trailblazing women. 
In communities and schools, we have walked and talked and written and spoken about the women who have changed the status of women in education, the arts, science and welfare. Our workshops have included all ages and have raised awareness about this heritage. 

There is more to come.

If you would like to contribute or get involved, please contact us.

A Look Back…

Dancing, Trailblazing, Taboo! Eleanor Marx: A Life in Movement

Performed at the Royal National Hotel in October.

The dance-theatre event performed at the Bloomsbury Festival was a huge success.  Collaborating with students from London Contemporary Dance School and professional actors Ruth Getz, Lesley Lightfoot and Amanda Maud, Julia Pascal created a celebration of the brilliance of Eleanor Marx.

See Film and Learn More

12:37 at Finborough Theatre

To write an epic play on this scale, using only five actors, is quite an achievement.  London Theatre1, John Groves

This is an important and complex play that attempts to raise nuanced and controversial questions around Jewish violence and national identity. 

Everything Theatre, Sara West

What an impressive and profound piece of theatre! It worked on so many levels – your writing, your directing and staging, the quality, accuracy, versatility and energy of your terrific cast. It’s both moving and distressing and you’re brilliant!

Mike Leigh

In association with Neil McPherson 

Written and Directed by Julia Pascal 

With Alex Cartuson, Ruth Lass, Danann McAleer, Lisa O’Connor, Eoin O’Dubhghaill

Performed at Finborough Theatre

Learn more

Unseen London

We all want quiet. We all want beauty … we all need space. Unless we have it, we cannot reach that sense of quiet in which whispers of better things come to us gently.

Many of us may enjoy Hampstead Heath, visit National Trust properties, talk about preserving the ‘green belt’ from development and shop at Octavia Foundation charity shops.

But, to who do we owe this legacy?  We celebrated the work of Octavia Hill learning about her life and work and reflecting on changes nowadays and who is fighting these battles nowadays.