Ghetto (play)

Ghetto
Front cover of the programme for the Royal National Theatre's 1989 production.
Written by	Joshua Sobol
Date premiered	1984
Original language	Hebrew
Subject	Vilna Ghetto
Setting	1941, Lithuania.

Ghetto (Hebrew: גטו‎‎) is a play by Israeli playwright Joshua Sobol about the experiences of the Jews of the Vilna Ghetto during Nazi occupation in World War II. The play focuses on the Jewish theatre in the ghetto, incorporating live music and including as characters historical figures such as Jacob Gens, the chief of the Jewish Police and later Head of the ghetto. It is part of a triptych of plays about the resistance movement, which also includes Adam and Underground.Ghetto premièred at the Haifa Municipal Theatre in Israel and the Freie Volksbühne, Berlin, in 1984, with folk and jazz singer, Esther Ofarim as Hayyah

It was performed in the Olivier Theatre at the Royal National Theatre, London, in an English-language version by David Lan, based on a translation by Miriam Schlesinger. This production opened on 27 April 1989. It was directed by Nicholas Hytner and designed by Bob Crowley.Alex Jennings played Kittel, Jonathan Cullen played Srulik, and Maria Friedman played Hayyah. It won the 1989 Evening Standard Award for Best Play. A production directed by Gedalia Besser opened at the Circle in the Square Theatre in New York on 30 April 1989.

Act I

The play begins in 1983 in Tel Aviv, as Srulik, an old one-armed man, recalls the last performance in the Jewish theatre in Vilna Ghetto, of which he was the artistic director.