Stop the Trains Synopsis
The play is set in Nazi Germany, 1941-1945 with a final scene in 1966.
Olga Chekhova, ex-wife of Anton Chekhov’s nephew, Michael Chekhov, is a star singer and actress for the Nazis, and admired by Hitler and Goebbels. Her daughter, Ada, also an actress, wants to escape Nazi Germany with her husband, Wilhelm Rust, a doctor and soldier. Rust fears trying to escape, though they have an infant daughter named Vera. When Nazi officer, Captain Wilhelm Striker, investigates Ada’s possible Jewish heritage, Ada makes a sexual arrangement with Striker to keep her husband from the Russian front and hide the fact Michael Chekhov’s grandparents were Jewish. Olga continues to sing and entertain the Nazis and delay the inevitable arrest of Ada. It is only a matter of time before Olga’s life as Stalin’s spy will be revealed and her greatest fan, Wilhelm Striker, will send her to a concentration camp.