THE LAST CYCLIST to Play National Pastime Theater, Beg. 8/15
By: BWW News Desk Jul. 03, 2013
That was the decision which inmates in the concentration camp at Terezin had to make before agreeing to appear in The Last Cyclist, a bitter satire on their life in the camp as well as on the Nazis who guarded them.
Written by Karel Svenk, the play told of a world where the lunatics were literally running the asylum as a mad dictator (read: Hitler) and his lunatic supporters (read the SS) escape from an asylum and take over the world. They declare that the evils in the world have been caused by bicycle riders (read: Jews) and they proceed to harass, hound, capture, exile and eventually kill all bicycle riders as well as anyone who ever owned a bike or whose grandparents owned a bike.While the Nazis promoted life in Terezin as a "model" ghetto where the inmates were well treated, in reality it was a prison of minimal and often inedible food, disease, hard labor and eventual deportation to "the East." To keep alive the illusion that the Jews were well treated, the Nazis allowed and even encouraged cultural activities including concerts, recitals, plays and cabarets. However, with The Last Cyclist it was feared that the satire had gone too far and the Jewish Council refused to allow the show to be performed. Luckily, those who saw the rehearsals or the clandestine performances in attics and basements, recorded what they could of the script.Videos
