‘Talking With Angels’ comes to Ashland

Acclaimed show draws on wartime episode in Hungary

By Jewish Review

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Ashland’s St. Clair Productions in conjunction with Havurah Shir Hadash will present Shelly Mitchell’s “Talking With Angels” March 8 at at the Ashland congregation.

“Talking With Angels” is a one-woman play based on the journals of Hungarian Gitta Mallasz. It is the true story of four friends living in Hungary who are said to have received teachings from beings they called angels in the midst of World War II.

Living in a small village outside Budapest, Gitta Mallasz and her three Jewish companions, Hanna, Joseph and his wife Lili, had been deeply disturbed by the increasing numbers of arrests as the Nazis swept across Hungary capturing and deporting Jews.

On June 25, 1943, the first of 88 dialogues reportedly was given by the angels. Gitta wrote down the angels’ words, spoken through Hannah, who said that she was filled with a bright light about which there was nothing joyous. “On the contrary, it illuminates my darkest interior with merciless clarity and I am compelled to see myself without deception,” Hannah said.

Joseph was deported to a concentration camp, prompting Gitta to search for a way to save Hanna and Lili from the same fate.

An influential friend told her of a secret plan to save 100 Jewish women and children by setting up a factory in a vacant cloister in Buda. Gitta became commander of the facility and her two friends workers. On Dec. 2, 1944, Hungarian Nazis stormed the gates of the cloister. Gitta escaped. Lili and Hannah were sent to a concentration camp, where they later died.

Hannah had often told Gitta that, of all of them, she must survive and give the dialogues to the world. In 1960, Gitta moved to Paris, married and translated the dialogues into French. They were published in Paris in 1976 as “Dialogues Avec l’Ange.” In 1988, they were published in English. Gitta died in 1992.

Mitchell first adapted “Talking With Angels” as a one-act play for the 1999 San Francisco Fringe Theater Festival. After winning Best of the Festival, Mitchell performed the work at San Francisco’s Magic Theater in 2000.

Encouraged by the overwhelming response, Mitchell scheduled five showcase performances to start Sept. 19, 2001, in New York City. After the attacks of Sept. 11, Mitchell and play director Robin Fontaine knew the play’s message would resonate deeply with New Yorkers.

Given the uncertainty of air travel, they drove to New York City in three days to open the play as scheduled at the Milagro Theater on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.

The show sold out and “Talking With Angels” was invited back to New York in May 2002, funded in part by the Lifebridge Foundation and sponsored by Parabola Magazine.

Since then, Mitchell has performed “Talking With Angels” more than 200 times at theaters on both coasts and in Ireland at the Dublin International Theatre Festival.

Show time in Ashland is 8 p.m. on March 8. Tickets are $18 in advance, $20 at the door and $10 for teens 12-17. Tickets are available at the Music Coop in the A Street Marketpace, on line at stclairevents.com or by calling 541-535-3562.

Havurah Shir Hadash is located at 185 N. Mountain Ave.