"Roger Grunwald is a phenomenon... I have never seen anything like The Obligation.”
— Peter Kenez, Ph.D., Professor of History, Emeritus, University of California, Santa Cruz and Holocaust survivor
Click here to read the
Broadway World review.
Click here to read the
San Francisco Examiner review.
“Grunwald is riveting”
— New York Times
“Grunwald has a Meryl Streep-like ability to shift from one character to another without a trace”
— Washington Informer
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Formerly entitled The Obligation, I Died in Auschwitz: A Remarkable Story of Survival, is a one-person Holocaust drama that had its world premiere in 2017 in San Francisco under the direction of Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle award winner Nancy Carlin. Written and performed by Roger Grunwald, this provocative stage work, which had an acclaimed follow-up production in 2018 — when it was a Theater Bay Area Award finalist for Outstanding Solo Production — interweaves the stories of a Polish Jew coming of age during World War II, a half-Jewish lieutenant in Hitler’s army, a high-ranking SS officer, and a Jewish-American comedian (the play’s Chorus) — all brought to life onstage in Grunwald’s tour-de-force performance. The 85-minute one-act play offers a provocative and timely look into the corrosive moral dilemmas of World War II and the Holocaust: a time when the unimaginable was the norm and survival depended on the right choice, guile, and sheer luck.
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“The Obligation is… Unsparing… [and] should
surely exist in perpetuity…flawlessly performed
and elegantly directed.”
