It is common to think of the Holocaust in aggregate terms: the six million people murdered, the 4,000 shoes on exhibit at DC’s Holocaust Memorial Museum. The power of Mark St. Germain’s The Happiest Man on Earth, playing as part of the Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, and expertly directed by Ron Lagomarsino, lies in its granular focus on one man’s experiences.
Based on a memoir of the same name by Eddie Jaku (who published it in 2020 when he was 100 years old), the play takes its protagonist from his youth in Nazi Germany, through Kristallnacht, imprisonment at Buchenwald, multiple escapes and arrests, being sent to Auschwitz twice, a death march as the Nazis evacuate prisoners from the camps as the war nears its end, and finally rescue by Allied troops. Jaku comes close to death too many times to count.
Kenneth Tigar’s performance as Jaku is a master class in what it means for an actor to inhabit a character. Tigar’s Jaku does not simply tell the story of his harrowing experiences. In his voice and body, he shows the audience what it feels like to live the experiences. What is it like to be packed into a boxcar on the way to Auschwitz as you see other prisoners die on the way? What is it like to stare into Joseph Mengele’s eyes and see boredom as Mengele routinely sends thousands of people to their deaths? What is it like to be in a line to the gas chambers — three separate times — and then be pulled out of line because a guard recognizes your tattooed number as that of an “economically indispensable Jew”? What is it like to hide, curled up in a drainpipe, freezing, sick, and near starvation, during the death march?
From Tigar’s performance, you will come as close as a comfortable audience member can to knowing what those experiences feel like. Tigar’s physicality in the role is as gripping and varied as his vocal range, giving emotional meaning to the events in his journey. Details matter in such a performance, and I took special note of Tigar’s hands. At times they would be shaky, in moments of fear or bewilderment. At other times, his clear, strong, specific gestures with his right index finger would command the stage.
In the small playing space of the Shepherdstown Opera House, James Noone’s simple but versatile wooden set can represent Jaku’s home, a train or truck, part of a concentration camp, or a postwar refugee center. Harold F. Burgess II’s lighting design is a marvel, whether making subtle changes in color and intensity to accompany a given moment in Jaku’s story or making a more dramatic statement when a sudden development — like Jaku’s first arrest — occurs. In combination with Brendan Aanes’ sound design, the sound and look of Jaku’s train ride to Auschwitz was particularly evocative, calling to mind the train scenes in Claude Lanzmann’s epic film Shoah.
So how, given the horrors of his time in Nazi Germany, does Jaku come to call himself the happiest man on earth? Even having survived, fallen in love, and married, Jaku talks of being depressed and experiencing the effects of what we would now call PTSD, dealing with his feelings by burying himself in work. Change came when he held his first child, which, he said, “healed his heart.” He relies on his father’s motto: “Family first. Family second, and last. And everyone is family.” His powerful life force, which gave him the resilience to survive, turns to creating a bountiful life for himself and his descendants in Australia, living a life of goodness.
In an interview in the CATF program, St. Germain commented that he wants to write about people who have a positive impact on the world. When you’re in the company of someone like Eddie, he said, you’re in good company. Watching The Happiest Man on Earth, you will be in the best of company, brilliantly portrayed.
Running Time: 90 minutes, without intermission.
The Happiest Man on Earth plays through July 28, 2024, presented by the Contemporary American Theater Festival performing at the Shepherdstown Opera House, 131 West German Street, Shepherdstown, WV, in repertory with four other CATF plays. See the CATF website for performance dates and times. Purchase tickets ($40–$70) at catf.org/buy-tickets or through the box office, boxoffice@catf.org or 681-240-2283.
The Happiest Man on Earth
By Mark St. Germain
Directed by Ron Lagomarsino
Kenneth Tigar as Eddie
DCTA REVIEWS OF THE 2024 CATF:
‘Tornado Tastes Like Aluminum Sting’ at Contemporary American Theater Festival (review by Deryl Davis, July 16, 2024)
‘Enough to Let the Light In’ in rep at Contemporary American Theater Festival (review by Deryl Davis, July 15, 2024)
What Will Happen to All That Beauty?’ at Contemporary American Theater Festival (review by Bob Ashby, July 8, 2024)
The Happiest Man on Earth’ in rep at Contemporary American Theater Festival (review by Bob Ashby, July 7, 2024)
