![]() ![]() ![]() The fine lines, the threads, the detail of intergenerational trauma that only a person who has experienced it themselves can ever know. Paterson illustrates the complexity of victims and victimhood. Beth also portrays Niusia’s “black rage”, the “angry, dying woman” whom she remembers more clearly than the kind, funny, caring mother that Suzie recollects. She imagines her grandmother making sly remarks about friends and strangers, but also relives Niusia’s trauma as a Holocaust survivor. Beth brings her grandmother to life by imitating her Polish accent, her gait and her many quirks. Suzie and Beth’s recollections of Niusia are often hilarious, sometimes disturbing, and at other times sad. It is a collaboration between Paterson, her creative team, and her family, including her “Jewish ancestors” from whom she not only inherits memories, but also “instincts”. It also exhibits the collaborative essence of NIUSIA. ![]() It strengthens NIUSIA as a story about storytelling and remembering, about memories passed down from generation to generation. It is a beautiful, and brilliant, artistic decision. NIUSIA’s headline for Melbourne Fringe is “How can you honour the legacy of a woman you never knew?” NIUSIA is based off of recollections, many of which aren’t even Beth’s – she interviews her mother, Niusia’s daughter Suzie, which she records and plays to the audience. a problem that makes someone produce false memories about events, or the false memories themselves.” Yes, I too had to google that term myself. In La Mama’s show program, Paterson describes NIUSIA as “an act of confabulation”. She talks of her deep dive into her Jewish identity and history, especially the Holocaust, describing how she read “book after book” in order to learn about and more importantly understand the genocide, and what it has done to her family. Through the writings of Jewish authors and thinkers such as Hannah Arendt, Beth finds “a community that didn’t know about”. But when you do find that person (or if you are really lucky, those people) who understands, you will have found yourself a beautiful community, with whom you can connect with on that rare, deeply personal level. It is very, very rare to find someone who understands intergenerational trauma itself, let alone its impact. Yes, you may say that I am generalising, but in my experience, this has been the fact. Or at least most people who live in first-world countries. NIUSIA touched me even further because my own grandmother passed away recently, and I too have spent the past few years trying to understand the history of my family, through her life.īeth speaks of a topic that is rarely understood by most people. I am part of the ethnic Chinese community in Indonesia, which, similarly to the Jewish community, has experienced centuries of persecution, marginalisation and scapegoating. In my family, it is also the women who inherit pain and resilience. Like Beth’s own family, where Jewish inheritance runs down the matrilineal line, women play a crucial part in my own. I also come from a family where intergenerational trauma runs deep, and has been passed down from mother to daughter. This is something that I relate to on a personal level. Because by understanding her grandmother, Beth will understand herself. NIUSIA, directed by Kathryn Yates is Beth Paterson’s autobiographical story of self-discovery through an investigation into her family history, exploring her Jewish roots, and her attempt to understand her grandmother, a Polish holocaust survivor: Niusia, whom Beth remembers as an ‘angry, dying woman’. Most of these are writings either by Jewish authors, about Jewish history and culture, about the Holocaust and World War II. There is a desk, a lace tablecloth, a couple of chairs, and piles and piles of books. An enormous pile of books catches my eye. I walk into the Motley Blackbox theatre and Ella Fitzgerald’s dulcet voice greets me as I take my seat. Content Warning: references to genocide and trauma
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