“Sheltered” is a thought provoking play, loosely based on a true story, well performed and well received.
It is 1939. Austria has been annexed into the German Reich, Kristalnacht has occurred, the Sudetenland has been taken over, but war has not yet started. The Jewish community of Vienna is in panic. People want to leave (and could) but few countries would take them in. The United States was virtually closed.
But a young Jewish doctor in Providence RI did manage to obtain 40 visas for Jewish children in Austria. He and his wife simply had to find families to house them in the U.S. And, oh yes, they had to travel to Vienna and select 40 children out of hundreds whose parents had applied.
They were almost ready to go to Austria (a very dangerous trip for a Jewish couple in 1939), when one of the families dropped out. They needed to find a home for the 40th child, and invited old friends (friends with whom they had dropped out of contact for reasons that became quickly obvious) and convinced them to sponsor a child, knowing that their friends’ marriage was perpetually on the rocks, and that alcohol and domestic violence played a part, along with failing finances. But, they were the 40th family. (The dialogue as the families met for dinner was clever and snappy)
The second act takes place in Vienna, not Providence, and the process of selecting the 40 to come to America is heart breaking. The atmosphere in Vienna stifling (not to mention the pounding rainstorm and dark skies). And then comes the mother of one of the 40 who decides that she has changed her mind, and cannot part with her 5 year old son. (The dialogue, as they discuss the merits – or more precisely the dangers – of staying or leaving, is neither clever nor snappy. It is as oppressive as the weather.)
Worth seeing.
Arthur Thinks (He Thinks) 