Dramaturgy - CAROLINE AVAKIAN

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Core Themes of 1939

Exile and Displacement

1939 explores what it means to be forcibly uprooted and rendered stateless. The play centers on Spanish refugees who survive war only to find themselves suspended in a new kind of limbo. Displacement is not just geographic, but psychological: the characters live between past and future, belonging, and erasure.

Buried History and Collective Amnesia

At its heart, the play interrogates how histories are deliberately obscured. The fate of Spanish refugees in France and their deportation to Nazi concentration camps has been systematically omitted from dominant World War II narratives. 1939 brings this forgotten history forward, asking who gets written into history and who is intentionally left out.

Sisterhood, Loyalty, and Moral Fracture

Through the relationship between sisters, Eva and Anabel, the play examines how love is tested under extreme pressure. Human survival forces us to make impossible choices, exposing tensions between self-preservation and responsibility to others. The sisters embody competing responses to trauma: resistance versus denial, memory versus escape.

Theatre as Resistance and Survival

Art is not ornamental in 1939 - it is an act of defiance. The refugees’ creation of theatre within the camp becomes a means of preserving identity, asserting humanity, and resisting dehumanization. The play ultimately positions theatre itself as a political and moral act: a way to bear witness when truth is under threat.

Identity Under Authoritarianism

As fascism spreads across Europe, the characters confront how quickly identity can be weaponized ad nationality, language, and ideology becoming markers of danger. 1939 explores how authoritarian systems strip individuals of complexity, reducing them to categories that can determine life or death.

Women, Agency, and Survival

Centered on women navigating war, exile, and patriarchal power structures, the play foregrounds female agency in moments where choice is constrained but never absent. It asks how women survive history and how history survives through them.

Memory as an Ethical Obligation

Ultimately, 1939 argues that remembering is not passive. Memory is an act of responsibility across generations. The play asks contemporary audiences to confront what happens when we fail to remember and what becomes possible when we do.