Hana's Suitcase

After a successful run at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People in 2006, Hana’s Suitcase has returned. The story – a Japanese museum curator and her students embark on a worldwide search to discover the history of a young girl who died during the Holocaust – is compelling enough on its own, which means this well-conceived stage production is worthwhile viewing, despite its noticeable flaws.

Based on a true story, Hana’s Suitcase begins in March 2000, when children at Tokyo’s Holocaust Education Centre urge the curator, Fumiko Ishioka, to uncover the story of Hana Brady, whose suitcase resides in their museum. At first all they have to go on is the suitcase, which bears her name, birth date, and the word “Waisenkind” (orphan), but Fumiko traces Hana’s history to Theresienstadt and then to Auschwitz. Along the way she discovers that Hana had a brother, who is still alive and living in Toronto, and the three of them turn to him to solve the mystery of Hana’s life.

Children are the driving force behind this story – the real-life Japanese youth actually did create a club called Small Wings and a newsletter devoted to spreading Hana’s history – and this play will resonate with young audiences differently than it will with adults. The multi-media aspect of the production melds beautifully with the action screens embedded in the backdrop and suspended above the stage provide footage from the Holocaust and Hana’s life at appropriate moments, or illustrate relics from the Holocaust such as Hana’s real-life drawings from Theresienstadt.

The play also interweaves the modern-day story with Hana’s story by juxtaposing the two onstage: Hana and her family act out snippets from their lives as the Japanese students imagine it. This could have come off as gimmicky, but it works. Particularly in the second act, when the two spheres seamlessly overlap, you really get a sense of the power this story holds over the students and the parallels they feel between their own lives and Hana’s.

Unfortunately, the production suffers from two very weak performances: the actors playing the Japanese Holocaust Centre pupils, Akira and Maiko. The young actors alternate between shrill, whiny, and exasperated, playing at being children instead of actually embodying their roles. The children are meant to be the heart of the story, but the young Japanese characters are drawn too simplistically and interpreted too unrealistically to be anything but stand-ins for the play’s message.

Nevertheless, this problem is unlikely to bother the intended audience I saw Hana’s Suitcase with several school groups (none of which were Jewish, by the way) and they clearly enjoyed the production the whole way through. Despite its flaws, Hana’s Suitcase is an important and moving story that might particularly appeal to Toronto audiences because of its homegrown connection, but should be seen by everyone – and it should be commended for showing the power of curiosity and empathy in children, and its potential for connecting people of different places, times, and cultures.

Hana’s Suitcase runs until May 21 at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People. For more information, visit www.lktyp.ca.