Losing the Plot of the Café Schindler

Detailed documentary theatre with critical distance, yes, it is.  Taut, tense drama with real conflict, only partly. The scenic production of Meriel Schindler’s extraordinary (auto)biographical book ‘The Lost Café Schindler: One family, two wars and the search for truth’ at the Tiroler Landestheater is a bold attempt to offer the tragic story of the Jewish Innsbruck family to a wider public, and to recall lost names and identities.

And the Innsbruck public here have responded strongly, both in filling the main house when the piece has been performed, and in extended ovations at the end, after almost two hours of the spoken word, interspersed by five sung interludes.

Meriel Schindler’s ambivalent attitude to her father Kurt is evident in the production. At the start she did not believe his story about her relative Dr Bloch being Hitler’s Jewish doctor; initially, she believed Kurt was present in Innsbruck during the horrific night of November 9, 1938. In both cases, her views were proved wrong. Truth proved stronger than fiction.

This is a story not simply of the Schindler family’s assimilation into, and then rejection by, Innsbruck society.  It’s also a narrative of Tyrolean attitudes to the (admittedly, small) Jewish community since the late 19^thc., and how the  attitude of Innsbruckers towards Jews changed markedly after March 1938.

The production challenges the audience and their sensibility by holding up a ‘critical mirror’: in the form of massive spotlights. They focus on, among other topics, the Reichenau Lager under the Nazis (now, ironically, a ‘recycling’ centre), on Gauleiter Hofer escaping criminal proceedings, and on the dubious role of the Sparkasse in the sale of the Schindler villa in Saggen. Home truths hit hard here.

As they do, too, in Tom Stoppard’s  ‘Leopoldstadt’: a scenic chronicle about a Jewish family and restitution over four time zones, from the turn of the century. It played last year in the Josefstadt-Theater in Vienna. Perhaps Austria’s capital city now needs to see ‘Café Schindler’?

Would ‘Café Schindler’ work even better as a radio drama? Perhaps ORF Oesterreich 1 or even Freirad in Innsbruck could offer a production?

(Freirad has already broadcast an extended interview with Meriel Schindler: available from the Cultural Broadcasting Archive: cba.media/reading circle/interview meriel schindler)

Alle Fotos: Birgit Gufler / Innsbrucker Fotoforum

Ein herzliches Dankeschön an BIRGIT GUFLER, die Leiterin des von Rupert Larl 1989 gegründeten Innsbrucker FOTOFORUMs (Adolf-Pichler-Platz 8, 6020 Innsbruck), der größten österreichische Galerie für Fotokunst (ein Besuch dort lohnt sich allemal!) für die großzügige Zurverfügungstellung relevanter Bilddokumente!!
(DZ Inzing / Redaktion)