Cast Set For THE BANALITY OF EVIL: HANNAH ARENDT, FRANCE, 1940 at the Arcola Theatre
Performances will run Wednesday 7 October - Saturday 7 November 2026.
The cast has been announced for The Banality of Evil: Hannah Arendt, France, 1940, a new play written and directed by Julia Pascal, unmasking a neglected chapter of history through the lived experiences of three extraordinary women. Performances will run Wednesday 7 October - Saturday 7 November 2026 at the Arcola Theatre.
In 1940, before she became internationally known for coining the phrase 'the banality of evil', 33-year-old German Jewish refugee Hannah Arendt was arrested in France as an "undesirable". Set in Camp Gurs, the largest French internment camp near the Spanish border, Pascal's play follows Arendt, pioneering artist Charlotte Salomon and teenage Communist Eva Daube from their arrest to their escape. Drawing on testimony, archival research and Arendt's own interviews, it uncovers the little-known story of the thousands of refugees fleeing Hitler interned by the French state. As German forces advance following the Armistice, the three women are forced to choose whether to endure or resist.
Weaving cabaret, physical theatre, satire and Brechtian theatricality with meticulous historical research and personal family testimony, Pascal constructs a haunting meditation on identity, displacement and survival.
The cast is led by acclaimed actor and stand-up comedian Mai Weisz (Two Palestinians Go Dogging, Royal Court Theatre) as Hannah Arendt, alongside Anna Eckhard (Mamma Mia!, Habima Theatre) as Charlotte Salomon and Ariella Barnett (Habanera After Dark, Courtyard Theatre) as Eva Daube. Pat Dynowska (Masters of the Air, Apple TV) plays Trude, while award-winning performer Helen Goldwyn (Fiddler on the Roof, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre) takes on the role of Agathe. Anja Fahlenkamp joins the company as musical composition & arrangement/ensemble.
In reclaiming the overlooked stories of women caught in the machinery of fascism, more than eighty years after the events of the play, The Banality of Evil invites audiences to consider how prejudice can become policy, how bureaucracy can normalise exclusion, and why these histories remain essential to remember.
Across the run, performances will honour the anniversary of Charlotte Salomon’s murder on October 10th, and the 100th birthday of Hannah Arendt, October 14th.
In May 1940, three German Jewish women are arrested in France – Hannah Arendt, who would become one of the 20th century's most influential political theorists, the artist Charlotte Salomon, and the Communist schoolgirl Eva Daube.
Branded “Undesirables” and transported to Camp Gurs, they find themselves among thousands of prisoners held by the state that once promised them refuge. As German forces advance, each woman must confront an impossible choice: stay and hope for liberation, or risk her life to escape into a dangerous and unknown future.
Blending satire, physical theatre and cabaret, The Banality of Evil draws on archival research and testimony to reveal forgotten histories of women caught between exile, imprisonment and survival. At its centre is a pivotal moment in the life of 33 year-old Hannah Arendt that would later inform her writing on power and human rights.
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