Meticulously researched, this historical play produced by a Liverpool-based theatre company is a Faustian re-imagining of the real-life story of Professor Gerhard Kittel, a renowned theologian who rose to the highest ranks of Third Reich academia.
Family man and celebrated scholar, Kittel was a world authority on Jewish scripture, culture and history. He was admired by Christian and Jewish scholars at home and abroad. Yet in 1933, he joined the Nazi party and wrote his infamous “Jewish Question” book which mulled extermination as a possible “solution” to Germany’s so-called Jewish problem. KITTEL is an uncompromising account of how reputation, personal honour and religion can be appropriated in the service of radical evil.
On the way to serve in WW1, young Gerhard Kittel encounters the demonic Herr Herold. Herold is “fishing for souls” and very interested in religion. Encouraging of Gerhard’s nationalist leanings and ambition, Herold is a familiar face in the years that follow. With Germany’s defeat in 1945, the full horror of the Holocaust is reported in the world media. Gerhard is thrown into jail. It is only when Herr Herold appears in his prison cell that Gerhard finally realises what he has done… and for whom.
Director of Heirs of Banquo Productions, Professor Rüdiger Schack, said, “KITTEL: Doktor Faustus of the Third Reich is a historical play presenting the precise process by which toxic narratives took hold in the years between the two world wars and enabled the rise of Hitler. The play offers scrutiny of racism and serves as a stark warning for our own time. It shows how easily the cultural sphere can become contaminated to the point where civility collapses altogether.”
Heirs of Banquo Productions is a theatre company proudly based in Liverpool. KITTEL is their first production, written by Charlotte Pickering whose novel Messiah of the Slums was published in 2017 by Fey Publishing. The play has received endorsements from Lord Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, as well as academics including: Alana Harris, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society; Simon Podmore, Holocaust Studies specialist; and Geoffrey Khan, Cambridge Professor of Hebrew.
Running Time: 120 mins approx (not inc interval) | Suitable for ages 12+
Content warnings: contains references to antisemitism and the Holocaust
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