The Banality of Evil: Hannah Arendt, France, 1940

In May 1940, three German Jewish women are arrested in France – Hannah Arendt, who would become one of the 20th century’s most influential political theorists, the artist Charlotte Salomon, and the Communist schoolgirl Eva Daube. The play follows the pivotal moment in the life of 33 year-old Hannah Arendt that would later inform her writing on power and human rights. Branded “Undesirables” and transported to Camp Gurs, they find themselves among thousands of prisoners held by the state that once promised them refuge. As German forces advance, each woman must confront an impossible choice: stay and hope for liberation, or risk her life to escape into a dangerous and unknown future.