News & Reviews
The Workshop Theater to present Through the Darkness by Alan Breindel. Composite characters offer powerful testimonials of survival in the Holocaust.
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New Jersey Jewish Standard
"To run or not to run? That’s the question that torments all people trapped in countries sliding into war or already embroiled in military conflicts. It tortured the Jews in 1930s Germany, just as it haunts Syrians today. Should we try to escape — or are we better off hanging on? Three of the four characters in Alan Breindel’s new play, “Through the Darkness,” now at the Workshop Theater on West 36th Street, chose to run and kept running, staying a few steps ahead of the Nazis till the end of the war. The fourth hung on and got lucky. And as we know from all the Holocaust survivor stories we’ve heard, luck matters just as much as anything."
New York Theatre Wire
"While the Jewish Holocaust with its millions of dead recedes into the further recesses of general history, and the survivors are approaching the last phase of their life, individual memory in the form of stories told still has the power to awaken in us the full horror of the lived experience. In the present production of “Through the Darkness” by Alan Breindel, we are not so much voyeurs into intimate lives but rather witnesses to a range of experiences and actions that demonstrate individual human suffering and resilience in the face of overwhelming odds of survival. In the intimate space of The Workshop Theater, director Leslie Kincaid Burby created ninety minutes of narratives with four actors alternately sharing the stories of their progress through hell. The four actors portray distinct characters with composite narratives of actual lives while a fifth actor, The Writer, stands in for Alan Breindel who collected over a number of years survivor accounts in interviews that formed the raw material for his dramatic text."
Splash Magazines
"I’ve attended plays at the Workshop Theater Company in the past and have been impressed by their productions. The theater, an Off-Off Broadway venue, is located in what was once New York City’s garment district, on west 36th Street, and has two stages. The Jewel Box is a 30-seat theater where new work is developed. The 65-seat Main Stage hosts full productions that are comparable to Off-Broadway shows and are in the final stage of the development process."
Show Score
"'Through the Darkness' centers around four composite characters based on interviews playwright Breindel conducted with Holocaust survivors. Three managed to avoid the concentration camps and remain free—even if freedom meant being constantly on the run. Chaos was inescapable, freedom was motion, and the only safe haven was anyplace other than where they were."
Broadway World
"'Through the Darkness' by Alan C. Breindel recounts the unimaginable journeys and true stories of four courageous men and women who left everything behind, including their loved ones, so that they might stay one step ahead of the Holocaust."
AZ Central
"Alan Breindel wants to capture the memories of people who survived The Hololcaust. 'In the 1990s, memories of the Holocaust were fading,' the Millburn resident told The Item. Around that time, he met a gentlemen who told Breindel his story about how he escaped the horrors of the German occupation in Poland. 'It made me feel I wanted to know more,' Breindel said.