Ludi Teatro is once again interested in a segment of European theater that has as its background the tragedy of the Holocaust, although in this case the bitter historical experience is given tangentially.
Erna (Sindy Rosario and Raiza D’Beche) and Jacob (Carlos Migueles) are a Jewish couple who have to hand over Rivka, their daughter, to a non-Hebrew family to save her from the mass extermination carried out by the Nazi hordes on that segment of the European population. Painful decision. The couple, even knowing that there is no other way to save the girl’s life, refuses to give up in the face of the imminent separation, especially when it is more than likely that they will not rebuild as a family in a future meeting.
The personal story of Judith Herzberg (Amsterdam, 1934), the poet and playwright who wrote this intense text, is the fire that fuels the plot. She and her two brothers spent the Second World War denying their true identities, changing houses frequently, hoping that each moment would be the last of their young lives, while their parents learned of the cruelty of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, from which they managed to escape almost by a miracle.
Judith, in this piece, tries to understand what the forced removal of their children meant for her elders. He puts himself in the shoes of both and offers us a look that is not without compassion. Everything revolves around Rivka, the aforementioned character, and her fate is much more than uncertain.
On stage, only two actors and Ludi’s powerful musical group, which underlines, advances and sometimes questions the characters. These parents, overcome by pain, assemble and disassemble their luggage all the time, in their eagerness to delay what could be a definitive departure. They want to believe that they have given their daughter “on loan,” that it is not “a gift.”
It is an intense game – if the word fits – through which they constantly change their mood, they get lost at times in the acidic claims and melt again in an embrace. They are essentially broken beings who, even knowing that the chosen one is the only possible path, refuse to accept it.
As is usual in Ludi, the directors of the show, Arianna Delgado and Miguel Abreu, demand from the actors a performance beyond the limit. When the curve of emotion seems like it could not continue rising, they resolve the complaints not only with technique, but also with full identification with the characters, to the point that we think that they are not interpreting, but that they are interpreting themselves. Bravo to Sindy Rosario and Carlos Migueles!
Towards the end of the text there is a moving dialogue. They have realized that they have been without a daughter for two days. resounding reality that they must face. After so much digging into each other’s chests, attacking each other and becoming friends again, united in an unspeakable pain, Jacob tells Erna: “I love you.” To which she responds: “Please never say it again.” “But I love you,” the man insists. “Only strangers, or beginners, say that to each other to reconcile,” she argues. And yes, what more can be said between two beings united by horror.
Rivka had its world premiere in February 2019 at the Frascati theater in Amsterdam. The Spanish translation for this production was carried out by Ronald Brouwer, who incorporated the texts that were added in the original assembly process.
In February 2026 Rivka must begin a second season in Havana. Stay tuned. It is a highly recommended show.
