Maureen Lipman stars in an exciting new play reading of Trudy Zeller Lives Here.
Trudy Zeller Lives Here is the true story of two elderly German women, one Jewish and the other Catholic, both unwilling immigrants to the UK. Decades ago, their families were divided by war and hatred. But now, by chance and circumstance, they find themselves next-door neighbours.
Trudy and Hilda agree on nothing, except that the Nazis were a terrible thing, and that their children routinely let them down. From the outset, a turbulent yet inescapably symbiotic companionship. A story of goodness in the present revealed in a context infected by the wickedness of the past.
About the Playwright:
For the first decade after Allan Leas - the son of a Lithuanian Jewish refugee - was granted political asylum in the UK from Apartheid South Africa, he worked as both a playwright and actor, while simultaneously pursuing a commitment to refugee protection.
Then, during the war in the former Yugoslavia, Leas abandoned his theatre career to focus on helping Bosnian refugees enter and resettle in the UK. From that point onward, he dedicated himself fully to refugee protection efforts in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
In the aftermath of Brexit he became increasingly disheartened by the rapid deterioration of government refugee policies. The recent plan to forcibly deport refugees to Rwanda deeply disturbed him, prompting him to write a contemporary play that confronts the troubling questions of why collective memory fades so quickly, why intolerance is so brazen, and how - despite heightened interest in the Holocaust - basic historical connections often fail to be drawn.
Trudy Zeller Lives Here draws on the true story of the relationship between Leas’s German mother-in-law and her Jewish neighbour. A play that, in the context of present bigotry against refugees, has loud historical resonance.