HAS Interview

The Hampstead Authors' Society

Zsuzsanna Ardó: Life or Theatre? Keep this safe, it is my whole life.

– in conversation with Candida Cave about her play, Lotte’s Journey.

Zsuzsanna Ardó: What triggered the writing of this play?

Candida Cave:

I visited the exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1998. I was amazed that I had never heard about Charlotte Salomon, despite the fact that I studied Fine Art and have taught History of Art for a number of years. A few years ago a friend reminded me of Charlotte’s paintings, and this coincided with me finding out about my own Jewish roots.

ZA: How did then the idea for a play turn into the writing process itself? How did you set about writing the play in practical terms?

CC: When I write a play I like to sketch out the plot simply, from beginning to end. I then tend to concentrate on the research, at the same time trying to find the reality of each character. I find tiny observations help with the characters – for example, the language they use or the way they walk.

ZA: How long did it take from the idea to the final product – the premier – and how many re-writes were there along the way?

CC: I sketched out the idea in August 2006. I started writing the first draft on 1st January 2007, and we held a public reading at New End Theatre at the end of March. The final play went through two major re-writes before we went into rehearsal in October 2007.

ZA: Could you tell us about the nitty-gritty details of your writing process? How do you structure your days?

CC: I try and write something every day – I think my training as a painter gave me that discipline as we were advised to draw every day! Sometimes I will write very little as I am spending more time reading around the subject or period – I like to immerse myself in the atmosphere of the period. When I am in the process of writing the play itself I will spend up to twelve hours a day writing.

ZA: While you were writing and rewriting, what were the major shifts in characters and action? Why?

CC: The first draft of Lotte’s Journey was based entirely on her story, as told in the flashbacks. For these I read everything (I think) ever published on her, but based the episodes on the paintings themselves. The characters on the train were only sketched in.

As the drafts progressed the train journey became more fleshed out and the characters more substantial. In my final script I tried to connect the train characters with those portrayed in the flashbacks to emphasise how the flashbacks were figments of Charlotte’s imagination. For example, at the end of the play when Miriam has a heart attack, Lotte calls out ‘Grandma’.

ZA: How long was the research process compared with the writing?

CC: I kept on researching while I was writing, so I must have spent about fifteen months researching and about two months writing each draft.

ZA: What did you enjoy (or did not enjoy) about each respectively?

CC: I love doing both, but I found writing the personal back stories most emotionally draining.

ZA: How much of the dialogue is closely based on reality as we know it from documents from the time?

CC: Very little: the only words I used were some that Charlotte wrote on her paintings.

ZA: Tell us about your sources, how you used them creatively, how closely you stuck to them. To what degree did you use, for example, Charlotte’s own narrative texts painted on her transparent overlays and the paintings?

CC: I read historical books on Berlin, Romania and Hungary and the effect of the Nazis on the civilisations. I went to Beth Shalom, the Imperial War Museum, and the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam. I saw boxes and boxes of the gouaches there, and used the Museum’s resource centre. As I said above, I took only a few words or phrases from the paintings as more seemed to inhibit the dialogue.

ZA: To what degree do you as the author, who is also an actor, participate in the casting, rehearsal and staging process – and as an artist and art historian in the production design?

CC: I have worked with Ninon Jerome, the Director, before and trust her completely. The only casting I participated in was Lotte’s, and that was at the recall stage.

The designer, Lotte Collett, came up with the ideas for staging and discussed them with Ninon and myself, but they were essentially her ideas.

ZA: In what ways, in your mind, is Charlotte’s visual song-cycle diary similar to and different from Anna Frank’s diary?

CC: The similarities seem to be that they are both observers of life. The differences stem from their families: Charlotte’s lonely and suicidal background meant she was always searching for her identity. And I think that would have been the case if there had not been Nazi persecution.

ZA: Several twists in the plot are traumatic.

Charlotte’s stepmother sends Charlotte away abruptly from the family home when emotional rivalry develops between the two women for the love of ‘Amadeus’, the mother’s voice instructor.

Charlotte’s grandfather makes what comes across in the play as sexual demands on Charlotte when her grandmother (his wife) commits suicide.

Charlotte knowingly triggers her death-journey by insisting on a publicly registered wedding when this would clearly and fatally endanger both her and her partner.

In the final scene of the play, Charlotte decides to go with the group heading for the gas chambers.

To what degree are these narrative choices underpinned by reality, that is to say by evidence from Charlotte’s life?

CC: The events centring on Charlotte and her stepmother and Charlotte and her grandfather are suggested in Charlotte’s paintings: these could have been real or her own perceptions.

The two final choices are, however, mine.
We do not know if it was Charlotte who wanted a public registered wedding, but we know that is what happened and it was a ‘form of suicide’.

We know Charlotte was registered as a draughtsman when she boarded the train at Drancy. But she perished the day she arrived. Two things could have caused this. Either the Nazis found out she was pregnant or she chose to take the line to the gas chamber. I decided the latter to show her taking control of her own death.