New Raven Play ‘Inspired by True Events’

“I’m a child of the Holocaust,” playwright Francine Schwartz begins our conversation. “It’s definitely in my DNA, there’s no doubt about it.”

Schwartz wrote The Germans Upstairs, the new play premiering in Healdsburg this weekend at the Raven Performing Arts Theater. Though she now lives in Roseland, outside of Sacramento, until a few months ago she lived in nearby Windsor, where she built a relationship with the Raven Players.

For the Raven, she wrote the Mike Blake Mysteries, an ongoing “theater noir” radio series presented by Raven Performing Arts during the pandemic. Two other short plays by her, All About Me and The Dream, were also read or produced at the Raven.

The Germans Upstairs, originally slated to open in March 2020, is Schwartz’s first full-length play to be presented locally. That earlier production was fully cast and ready to go, then canceled due to the pandemic.

This weekend’s opening marks the culmination of 10 years of research, inspiration and introspection for Schwartz, now 75, along with a lifetime of memories. That decade began in 2014 while she went through family possessions in the family home, cleaning things out because her mother had moved into assisted living.

“It was full of memorabilia of all kinds, and beautiful furniture that goes back to Europe, Austria, Romania, France … And so I was separating things, some for auction and some to come back with me, when I came across all these photographs,” she said.

“I was just flooded with real memories of my childhood by the photographs of my mother and grandmother during the war,” she added—memories of family stories told almost three-quarters of a century ago, when she was a young girl.

“I honestly don’t remember how old I was when my mother and grandmother started telling me that at the beginning of the German occupation of Paris, two German officers lived in their house,” she said. The soldiers were billeted there, upstairs from the two Jewish women whose house it was.

Her father, separated from the family at the time, later died at Auschwitz.

Broken Echoes

The situation is like a broken echo of The Diary of Anne Frank, the journal of a teenage Jewish girl hiding for two years in an Amsterdam attic. “It was the first play I ever saw,” Schwartz said. “I was 13. I identified with Anne … She was a budding writer and actor. I identified with her; I thought I WAS her.”

But The Germans Upstairs is in no way a retelling of the Anne Frank story—quite the opposite, in fact. It’s a romance.

When still a young girl, Schwartz heard the story of the two Germans upstairs. “My grandmother and mother both said that one of the two officers was very well-bred and well-educated, and super nice to them. He brought them anything from Cointreau to oranges; all kinds of foods that were difficult to get at the time,” she remembers hearing.

“The other one was coarser, kind of gruff. He sounded like the typical stereotype that we have of the Nazi soldier,” she added. Then the shoe drops, the seed of what became the play. “What really got me is my mother telling me, ‘I used to hear them talking late into the night and laughing,’” speaking of her mother and the gentlemanly German.

Initially appalled at the friendship, young Francine then began to appreciate that the two, a German officer and a Jewish mother, had formed an attachment. “They transcended the boundaries that were set by war and society,” she remembers thinking, “and were just dealing with each other as two people.”

But as she got older, she began to wonder: Was something else going on?

Her grandmother denied it, saying, “Oh no, we were just friends!” Yet even if that’s true, the germ of a story began then, decades ago, a story that will be staged at the Raven starting Sept. 5.

Under Lights

At first, Schwartz wrote a short story, and showed it to some friends. They encouraged her to do more with it—to turn it into a play, or even a movie. It began to expand; subplots were created, other characters were introduced, eventually 14 in all. She sent the play to five theaters, the Raven among them.

“Steven David Martin wrote back and said, ‘Great story, great roles, terrific potential. Let’s get together and talk about this,’” Schwartz recalled. Actor-director Martin, now associated with the Raven for about 20 years, became its artistic director in 2014. After two readings, Martin and Schwartz worked to distill the play down to its essence.

“It’s got five characters now, which is much more manageable,” Martin said. “And the story is much more focused and much more vibrant than it was originally. I think she did a terrific job, especially within the last year, of really focusing the story.”

For this production, the audience will be seated on the stage with the actors, like a theater-in-the-round. “We’ve done this about eight times,” Martin said. “It just makes this whole theater a totally different environment, and it’s perfect for this play.”

Only 74 people will be seated for each performance, which will last about two hours with an intermission. Schwartz herself will see the play for the first time on opening night.

“I can’t wait to see the audience reaction,” Schwartz said. “I’ve waited long enough.”

‘The Germans Upstairs’ opens in Healdsburg at the Raven Theater on Sept. 5 and plays weekends though Sept. 15. Tickets available at www.raventheater.org.