Last Words, a play by Joseph Sherman

Last Words - A Play by Joseph Sherman

Joseph Sherman is an independent theatre maker and a GP. After both of his parents developed Alzheimer's, he was inspired to create this play by the humanity and poetry that persist, despite the tragedy of loss. In Last Words he rescues fragments of his parents' life story from the oblivion of the disease they both suffered.

Sherman traces his parents' pre-war life in the Soviet Union, their survival as Jews during the horrors of Nazi occupation in Odessa and the new and turbulent life they found in St Kilda in the 1970s. Their strength and resilience is illustrated in stories about their survival and then later, dealing with the demise of their memories.

The play crosses from English to Russian and Yiddish. If you don't speak the language the play will speak to you with acting and music and perhaps evoke some of the bafflement that might be experienced by those suffering memory loss.

Last Words shines a light on the need to defend both personal and cultural memory against oppression and loss.

Last Words is co-devised and directed by Joseph Sherman and John Bolton, with music composition and performance by Chris Bolton, set design by Brian Lipson and lighting design by Shane Grant. The play is co-presented by the Kadimah Jewish Cultural Centre and the Jewish Holocaust Centre.

The season runs from February 26th to March 8th at Kadimah Jewish Cultural Centre, 7 Selwyn St, Elsternwick.