THE WEIGHT
OF A LIFE SPENT
BEARING WITNESS
Isabella Hubbard
In the play Drowned Or Saved by Geoffrey Williams presented at Tristan Bates Theatre in London, decades after surviving Auschwitz, chemist and writer Primo Levi is restless as he struggles to complete a story about a character he simply cannot understand.
In search of guidance, he pulls from the memories which haunt him and inadvertently brings the characters from his past to life - though their input proves to be far more penetrating than expected.
“Tomorrow? Tomorrow meant never… I think the last time I thought of tomorrow with any hope was on the train to Auschwitz.”
In this poignant, potent play Williams invites you to embark on Primo’s cross-world journey which explores the ambiguity of human nature as defined by one of the twentieth century’s greatest thinkers.