Michelle Kholos Brooks' show — at Centenary Stage Company April 6-22 — tells a little known bit of history but its focus is on the four young women forced to put their lives on the line one meal at a time.
“Hitler’s Tasters,” Michelle Kholos Brooks’ world premiere play, is based on the true story of a group of young German women who were forced to live in Adolf Hitler’s World War II bunker and taste his food to ensure it wasn’t poisoned.
And if the show’s title and premise aren’t enough to draw you to the Centenary Stage Company, where the show is being staged from April 6 to 22, listen to how Brooks describes her work, which won 2017’s Susan Glaspell Award:
“Young woman are complicated,” Brooks said. “One moment, they’re braiding each other’s hair, and the next, they’re turning on each other.”
Three times a day, the “tasters” face the possibility that they might not live through another meal.
“When you put four young women in a space together and they don’t have any thing from outside world to deal with, what do they talk about? What are their hopes and dreams? Add the backdrop of the war and, on top of it, that they could die at any meal,” she said, “and I was really interested in their dynamic and how they’d handle it.”
Adolf Hitler had 15 female food tasters at his headquarters during World War II, but little was known about them until 2014, when Margot Wolk, broke her silence after 70 years. Wolk described what it was like to the U.K.’s “Independent” newspaper:
“Some of the girls started to shed tears as they began eating because they were so afraid. We had to eat it all up. Then we had to wait an hour, and every time, we were frightened that we were going to be ill. We used to cry like dogs because we were so glad to have survived.”
Brooks learned the food tasters’ story a few years ago and it stayed with her. She knew she wanted to write about them, but her approach only came to her after she watched the movie “Heathers,” the 1988 dark comedy about teenage cliques.
“I realized the (tasters) would have been young girls like those,” Brooks said. “Girls are girls are girls are girls over time.”
She also says that she “didn’t want to look at them through the sepia toned lens of history. I wanted them to be very relevant and now.”
The production is directed by Sarah Norris, and stars Brianna Morris, Emaline Williams, Ally Borgstrom and Jennifer Robbins. Norris said that when she first heard the play’s title, she “assumed it was a period piece. You hear ‘Hitler’ and think dark, dramatic period piece.”
Instead, she said, she found a contemporary tale, albeit one set in the 1940s.
“Right away, you recognize the girls, and then you backtrack and realize this is set in the 1940s. It seems so far away, but it’s really not,” Norris said. “The characters talk like girls today. They have the same worries as girls today. They use cell phones.”
Cell phones in the 1940s? Yes, that’s one of the show’s anachronisms. During readings and talk backs, those touches have been the topic of conversation.
“People will have to decide for themselves whether they feel the modern influences make sense in the story and whether it’s an effective use to blend two worlds,” Norris said. “I think it’s a very cool way and different way to tell the story.”
Hitler does not appear on stage, but his presence is felt.
“He’s a great source of tension in the play – is he coming or is he not? Will we see him? He’s certainly a driving force to the girls’ fantasies,” Norris said. “You see how he manipulates and abuses them.”
Norris notes that the play consists of all female characters, was written by a woman and also is being directed by a woman.
“The show has such a fresh voice. (Brooks) has written these four strong female characters and you don’t see (that) often, even in modern plays,” Norris said. “It’s really nice to see women in a space, having a conversation.”
HITLER’S TASTERS
Centenary Stage Company
715 Grand Ave., Hackettstown
Tickets: $ 17.50-29.50, available online at http://www.centenarystageco.org. April 6 – 22.
Natalie Pompilio is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia. She can be reached at nataliepompilio@yahoo.com. Find her on Twitter @nataliepompilio. Find NJ.com/Entertainment on Facebook.