Stage Adaptation of Jan Glazewski's BLOOD & SILVER Makes Premiere at the Baxter
The production will be performed from 8 to 12 July.
By: Stephi Wild Jun. 12, 2025
Blood & Silver is a gripping one-man play based on the memoir of environmental lawyer Jan Glazewski, who embarked on a perilous journey in search of the long-lost family treasure buried 80 years ago in Poland – armed with only his father's hand-drawn map.
Jan's epic search for these heirlooms becomes a deeper journey of survival, legacy, and love.
Directed by internationally acclaimed, multi award-winning director Fred Abrahamse (Julius Caesar; Hamlet), the production stars seasoned actor David Muller (Oom Schalk; Imagining Einstein ) in the role of Glazewski. The book has been adapted for the stage by Abrahamse and Muller.
The play will be presented from 8 to 12 July in The Baxter Masambe Theatre.
In the powerful production of Blood & Silver, Muller brings to life Glazewski's extraordinary journey, beginning with a tragic childhood marked by haemophilia, an HIV/AIDS diagnosis from a blood transfusion, and the overwhelming odds he faced growing up.
Says Director Fred Abrahamse, “The play delves deeper into Glazewski's quest to fulfil his late father's final wish: to recover the family's heirlooms, buried in a forest before the invasion of Poland during World War II. As the Germans in collaboration with the Russians turned his homeland into a warzone, the treasure remained hidden, and the journey to reclaim it forms the heart of Blood & Silver.”
“Blood & Silver is a memorable and deeply moving theatrical experience that captures the remarkable true story of survival, loss, and determination. It is vital that historic stories like Jan's, that are highly personal but speak to a universal humanity, find new ways to be shared for a greater audience, ” says Abrahamse.
Jan Glazewski was born in South Africa in 1953 and is the son of Polish refugee parents who left eastern Poland (now western Ukraine) at the outbreak of World War II. “When I wrote Blood & Silver, I thought that if it could inspire just one person, the story would be worth sharing. I am overwhelmed by the incredible response it has received and seeing it on stage will add a whole new dimension,” says Jan Glazewski.
“I feel privileged to be entrusted with representing the delicate fabric of Jan Glazewski's extraordinary life,” says David Muller. “It's also been a double delight for me this winter, collaborating with Bizo Maxegwana to present another new one man show with the Adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's Diary of a Madman.”
BLOOD & SILVER will be performed from 8 to 12 July.
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