The Banality of Evil: Hannah Arendt, France, 1940 – Arcola Theatre 7 Oct – 7 Nov 2026
Written and directed by Julia Pascal
In May 1940, three German Jewish women are arrested in France – Hannah Arendt, who would become one of the 20th century’s most influential political theorists, the artist Charlotte Salomon, and the Communist schoolgirl Eva Daube.
Branded “Undesirables” and transported to Camp Gurs, they find themselves among thousands of prisoners held by the state that once promised them refuge. As German forces advance, each woman must confront an impossible choice: stay and hope for liberation, or risk her life to escape into a dangerous and unknown future.
Blending satire, physical theatre and cabaret, The Banality of Evil draws on archival research and testimony to reveal forgotten histories of women caught between exile, imprisonment and survival. At its centre is a pivotal moment in the life of 33 year-old Hannah Arendt that would later inform her writing on power and human rights.
A world premiere from writer and director Julia Pascal (Blueprint Medea; Crossing Jerusalem).
Pascal Theatre Company Newsletter Spring – Summer 2026
The Banality of Evil. Hannah Arendt 1940, France.
Written and directed by Julia Pascal
In May 1940, Jews seeking refuge in France were arrested. Many were deported to internment camps in the south-west. This drama focuses on the largest of these camps, Gurs. The action focuses on three who were incarcerated as ‘Undesirables’. Thirty-four-year-old, political writer, Hannah Arendt, sixteen-year-old schoolgirl Eva Daube and twenty-four-year-old painter, Charlotte Salomon.
A ‘reluctant’ history, this drama explores the arrest of France’s unwanted ‘aliens’ in May 1940 in the twilight period between Armistice and Occupation. Hannah Arendt was arrested and imprisoned in Gurs during the summer of 1940. Artist, Charlotte Salomon is also believed to have been transported there.
The story has been researched through interviews and in the departmental archives in Pau as well as in Germany and the USA. This is the story of three women, of different ages and backgrounds. Each is forced to abandon friends and family as she is ordered into No-Woman’s Land.
At 33, Arendt is at the end of her philosophy studies and the beginning of her career as a political theorist. She is yet to become the author of the famous phrase The Banality of Evil which she used at Adolf Eichmann’s Trial and which provoked such outrage. The title here refers to the banality of the evil of arresting ‘foreigners’ with no official identity. Such round-ups are often the prelude to mass murder.
Of the three women profiled in Arendt and Daube, escape to the USA. However Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943), daughter, niece and granddaughter of three suicides, remains in France. She was five months pregnant when she was gassed in Auschwitz. Salomon is admired today as the first artist to create images, text and music as evidenced in her extraordinary inventive narrative cycle known as Leben? Oder Theater? (Life? Or Theatre?) 800 artworks were created between 1941 and 1942.
For more information see Griselda Pollock’s Charlotte Salomon and the Theatre of Memory published by Yale University Press, 2017.
The third major character is Eva Daube who is a composite of Eva and Trude Daube. Eva survived. Trude vanished in 1933 and is believed to have been murdered as a Communist.
The play had a semi-staged reading at Burgh House in 2023. Here are some of the reactions and Julia’s explanation of how the text came about.
Reactions:
“Intense with moments of delightful humour which added to the humanity of the play.”
“Thought-provoking.”
“I found the event to be powerful, jarring, and heartbreaking.”
“I also was very moved by the material that you brought up, that doesn’t normally get put into literature, or even just straight record keeping. So, to hear the women talking about rape in the family, and by that gendarme and the various other incidents, really was incredibly moving. So, thank you so much. It touched on so many issues that don’t normally get out.”
Background:
Julia: The story came to me through a cousin of mine. My mother’s sister married a German Jew., Albert Daube. One day when we were holidaying in France, my cousin David, Albert’s son, said to me, ‘My grandmother and my aunt were in France in 1940, they were imprisoned in Gurs. I asked him ‘What’s Gurs?’
Intrigued by this hidden history I went to Camp Gurs, which is close to the Spanish border, and to the archives in Pau. I discovered that Hannah Arendt had also been in Gurs and had written about it. Before Gurs she was in the Paris Vélodrome where foreigners were mandated to report or face arrest. But, when I researched in Paris, I was told by archivists ‘The arrests that happened in the Vélodrome were in 1942 not 1940′. I knew that this denial masked the earlier arrests of 1940. That the Germans had been responsible for the 1942 round up of Jews in Paris was undeniable and could shift the responsibility for the round-up to the invader. But the 1940 round-up in the Vélodrome was under the order of the French Republic. This was an embarrassing historical fact.
Exiles who had fled the Third Reich for safety in France were delineated as ‘The Undesirables’ in 1938. As well as German and European Jews fleeing Hitler, ‘The Undesirables’ were Spanish Republicans, nomads, communists and others decided as undesirable elements. What is uncomfortable for some French historians is that these arrests occurred before the Vichy regime. It was the government of Edouard Daladier that started the internment process.
There are many historical records of intellectuals and artists who fled the The Third Reich for France and some managed to get into the USA. Most literature focus on male exiles. This play addresses the way women’s experience of exile has been neglected. The choice of an all female cast is deliberate.
The play ends with the escape of Hannah Arendt and Eva Daube to the US but the aftermath is important to know. Not everyone escaped. Some prisoners were terrified of leaving the camp to walk into a hostile environment of Jew-hating peasants. They stayed. However as soon as the Nazis occupied the south of France, the camp had a more sinister purpose. New inmates were brought in by train from Germany. These were German Jews from Mannheim, Heidelberg and other German cities where they were held before being deported to Auschwitz.
Casting is happening now and the production opens for booking in June.This is a co-production between the Arcola Theatre and Pascal Theatre Company.
www.pascal-theatre.comwww.arcolatheatre.com
Performances are at 7pm, Monday to Saturday with a Saturday matinee.
There was no newsletter at the end of 2025 as our Chief Administrator and Senior Researcher, Sally Mijit died. Sally was the originator of the Women for Women: Bloomsbury 19th century project. This was funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
https://www.pascal-theatre.com/project/women-for-women-women-in-19th-century-bloomsbury/
Sally’s achievement was monumental. She leaves a huge legacy which honours the achievements of 19th century women and inspires new generations. We thank her for her loving attention to detail and her generosity in making this a wonderful website.
Her work continues with a future project which Professor Claire Brock and Pascal Theatre Company are currently developing to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Royal Free Hospital in 2028.
Further updates on casting and the autumn production will appear in the next newsletter.