A wartime fable about a woodcutter's wife who prays for a child and discovers a tiny bundle thrown from a train will be staged to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day.
The Most Precious of Goods is performed at Marylebone Theatre by Sex Education star Sam Spiro - accompanied by evocative projections, and music from acclaimed cellist Gemma Rosefield.
It's been adapted from Jean-Claud Grumberg's bestselling 2019 French novella by former Tricycle Theatre director Nicolas Kent.
The book is also being made into a major animated film due for release in 2025, directed by Michel Hazanavicius, and produced by the team behind Oscar-winning film The Artist.
Kent, who lives in Little Venice, says: "The book has been a huge success and translated into 20 languages.
"Although this play is for adults, in some ways it's quite simple storytelling that borrows from a childrens' fairytale. It's like a fable, but very dramatic, poetic and lyrical."
The 80-minute drama takes place against the backdrop of the Holocaust during an Eastern European winter in 1943. A Parisian doctor bound for a concentration camp on a train holds his twin babies in his arms. His wife has milk for only one of them, and as he travels through a forest he has to make a choice and throws one of the babies into the snow.
At risk to themselves, the woodcutter and his wife raise the baby girl as their own.
"We have lost the art of storytelling and this is storytelling at its most profound," adds Kent.
"It's very moving but I hope it offers hope, goodness knows we need hope at the moment."
During his two decades plus running the Kilburn venue, Kent pioneered the so-called tribunal plays, editing down the transcripts of public inquiries and court proceedings into dramatised verbatim performances.
From Stephen Lawrence to Bloody Sunday and most recently The Grenfell Inquiry, they distil often years of hearings to hold those responsible to account.
Grenfell: Value Engineering was staged in 2021 and aired as a two-parter on Channel 4. Grenfell System Failure was staged at the Marylebone Theatre in 2023, but with the final report due this spring, Kent hopes his 'Scenes from the Inquiry' have a further life.
"I am hoping to issue it as a five episode podcast, hopefully with the Grenfell community commenting on the scenes, to come out at the time of the recommendations around April or May," he says.
"Having done the two pieces I don't want to walk away from it. It's so important to hold the government accountable so the recommendations do actually happen."
As for his latest venture, Kent agrees that at a time of rising antisemitism - and he points out Islamophobia - it's timely to make work about the Holocaust.
"One always needs to make work about these things. There have been five documented Holocausts, including ones in Bosnia, and Darfur that no-one even talks about. I don't think we should forget them either.
"What this play does so effectively is look at human beings and their love for their children. It has a strong anti racist message that needs to be heard."
The Most Precious of Goods runs from January 22 until February 3 at Marylebone Theatre in Rudolf Steiner House, Park Road, NW1. International Holocaust Remembrance Day is on January 27.
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