Camp Siegfried

by Bess Wohl

I'm a killer I told youI told you that all alongYou were the dummy to believeI could ever be anything elseTwo teenagers fall in love on Long Island. There's fun and dancing, sports and team spirit, there's the woods and beer and physical hard work. But it's 1938, the world is on the brink of war, and their wholesome summer camp is exclusively for American youth of German descent. As their mutual attraction deepens, so they become intoxicated by the Nazi ideology that fuels the camp, an ideology that will culminate in global atrocity and genocide.Inspired by the real Camp Siegfried, Bess Wohl's play premiered at the Old Vic Theatre, London, in September 2021.

Genres: Plays, Theatre

118 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 7, 2021

Reviews

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5, rounded down.

Wohl, Tony-nominated for her last play (Grand Horizons), never repeats herself, and this two-hander, opening off-Broadway in just a few days, is proof positive. Based upon an actual summer camp that operated on Long Island in the late'30's and closed only once America entered the war in 1941, was used to indoctrinate impressionable German-American youth to the glories of the Aryan Fatherland, including procreating as early as possible to further the master race. There is nothing subtle about Wohl's play, which includes the female character (they are only known as Him and Her in the script) slyly including the phrase 'make America great again' in her concluding speech on 'Hitler Day'. And that's one of the problems - the play is a bit heavy-handed and often the characters become mouthpieces for ideology rather than living, believable teenagers. It got mixed reviews in London where it premiered last year, and it will be interesting to see how the new revised script plays here in the US.

https://dnyuz.com/2022/10/25/tell-the...
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/202...
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/202...
https://variety.com/2021/legit/review...
https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/th...

[sparrow · Rating 3 out of 5]

simultaneously too on the nose and not on the nose enough

[Liz Gutridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you are the government i did not read an illegal pdf of this and i will be accepting no further questions

if you didn’t know they were nazis by page 5 i am concerned, they literally talking about a street called H!TLER AVENUE!!! yALL!!!

[leah hohauser · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is the difference between all of us and being evil? It’s actually not that many steps away from any of us.

Oh Bess Wohl. You’re a genius.

Propaganda is crazy. Really interesting to look at World War II through the lens of an American German summer camp

Such a powerful example of how people with so little self-worth who want to be chosen their whole life can so easily become brainwashed.
It doesn’t matter what she was chosen for. She finally belonged. Unforgivable, but so important to study how it happens.

How people lose their humanity:

“God I hate weakness I do”

“So we were wrestling and I just
I could feel him getting around my feet and suddenly I felt like I felt like he wasn’t a person so much as a problem to solve
Like a
Like a really annoying bug
Or a gnat that’s just flying around your face
You just want to smash it
I mean that’s a thing people do every day it feels good”

“And I could feel in an instant this Armour grow over myself like okay I’m a killer now and I will be inside this strange shell peering out for the rest of my life
It was like a thickening
Or maybe more of a more of a hardening”

THIS line is crazy bc it’s kind of true:
“He woke up he’s fine I’m a hero I won the fight and everyone’s laughing about it
I’m not any different than the person who might have killed him I was only saved by I don’t know the angle the softness of the ground nothing I did is any different”

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a very engaging read. I enjoyed the presentation of the dialogue in this two-hander: He is in type; she is italicized; there is no punctuation

Ultimately, the drama comes from the connection between the two youths, and the plot (such as it is) and politics are mere set dressing. I'd love to see it staged, but it's not clear to me as a reader how it would make much of an impact.

[Romeo Channer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would be SO juicy to direct! Like many of my favorite plays about teenagers, the dialogue is snappy and dreamy at the same time. Blunt and full of fantasy. Which also really works with the volkish fascism baked into even the seemingly innocent moments

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spare and elegant and brutal. You see every ounce of it coming, but it comes so beautifully. A play for all Long Islanders.

[Cecilia Gries]

fucking wild to read about the lead up to the holocaust from this perspective, especially after approaching/researching it from such a different place for cabaret this past summer

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read because I played Her. Brutal.

[Caitlin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Less compelling than the similarly themed Here There Are Blueberries, for example, but compelling all the same. A chilling look at how right wing youth get radicalized.

[Madeline · Rating 2 out of 5]

okay splinter girl

[Lydia Newman]

Good lord

[Jonathan May · Rating 5 out of 5]

Provocative, breathless, daring to stare into America’s dark past.