The Windmill is a tale of creative courage and a quest for spiritual identity. It was inspired by the author s mother s childhood memories of Peter Kien, her cousin and close friend who died in Auschwitz aged 25. A child cartoonist and puppeteer, by the age of 19, Kien was a teacher at the Prague School of Art with a promising artistic career ahead. But during the Nazi occupation of former Czechoslovakia, both Peter and his wife Ilse were sent to the Terezin transit camp on the death route to Auschwitz. The action begins and ends in Terezin where Peter Kien s lover Helga, who survived the war, returns many years later on a pilgrimage. She is haunted by the memory of Peter, who appears to her now as an old man. As he slowly reveals his true identity, the couple recover their lost youth together, reliving the darkest days in which their love inspired the courage to go on. But is Peter a figment of Helga s imagination, or is this a mystical encounter? The story unfolds against a background of terror, tragedy and the flowering of art under oppression| 27 Jan 04 to 14 Feb 04 | Union Theatre Inner London, Greater London Performance Details => Venue archive |
