Here Rests the Heart by
This play was inspired by several things: dating back to 2012, I took several trips to Poland, exploring both the theater and the country itself. I became enamored with Warsaw, Wroclaw, and Krakow and heartbroken by Auschwitz and the complicated relationships the Polish people have with their history. Prompted by these trips I began to explore my own cultural history and on one trip in particular I was able to...
This play was inspired by several things: dating back to 2012, I took several trips to Poland, exploring both the theater and the country itself. I became enamored with Warsaw, Wroclaw, and Krakow and heartbroken by Auschwitz and the complicated relationships the Polish people have with their history. Prompted by these trips I began to explore my own cultural history and on one trip in particular I was able to connect with a distant Polish cousin who shared with me some genealogy research she had done. This play, set in the context of the current political climates of Poland and the U.S.A., is my attempt to reconcile my present with my past while trying to find the place art occupies in times when society seems to struggling for its essential survival.
| Full length play |
Protests are everywhere, but they don’t seem to change a thing. The president of the United States is justifying caging children at the border. The president of Poland incites anti-LGTBQ violence and tries to restrict freedom of speech regarding the Holocaust. This is the world of 2019.
“Here Rests the Heart" tells the story of two people, one an American pianist living in Chicago, the other a Polish woman fighting for LGTBQ rights in Warsaw. The pianist, Freddie, is haunted by many ghosts including his recently deceased father as well as the great composer and pianist Frederick Chopin. Tekle finds herself constantly embroiled in confrontation, which often end in her limping home to be nursed by her father.
Freddie’s strained relationships with his best friend Cade, a slactivist who cares so deeply about every single thing it’s as if nothing really matters, and his mother, who seems to resent his existence, cause him to travel to Poland to meet his cousin Tekle and finish the genealogy research his father was never able to finish. The uncovering of family secrets during the Holocaust, has him rethinking his life, relationships, and purpose in the world.
A play as much about the present as it is the past, "Here Rests the Heart" challenges us to account for what matters most to us in the world, and calls us to take action in lifting these things up.
| Full length play |
Protests are everywhere, but they don’t seem to change a thing. The president of the United States is justifying caging children at the border. The president of Poland incites anti-LGTBQ violence and tries to restrict freedom of speech regarding the Holocaust. This is the world of 2019.
“Here Rests the Heart" tells the story of two people, one an American pianist living in Chicago, the other a Polish woman fighting for LGTBQ rights in Warsaw. The pianist, Freddie, is haunted by many ghosts including his recently deceased father as well as the great composer and pianist Frederick Chopin. Tekle finds herself constantly embroiled in confrontation, which often end in her limping home to be nursed by her father.
Freddie’s strained relationships with his best friend Cade, a slactivist who cares so deeply about every single thing it’s as if nothing really matters, and his mother, who seems to resent his existence, cause him to travel to Poland to meet his cousin Tekle and finish the genealogy research his father was never able to finish. The uncovering of family secrets during the Holocaust, has him rethinking his life, relationships, and purpose in the world.
A play as much about the present as it is the past, "Here Rests the Heart" challenges us to account for what matters most to us in the world, and calls us to take action in lifting these things up.