“Cultural connections, being part of a diaspora and what we inherit from those who went before” – interview with theatre maker Anna Clover
Anna Clover performing Going Deutsch
On Sunday, 6 November, Manchester Jewish Museum will welcome the London-based theatre maker, Anna Clover, in her debut solo comedy show, Going Deutsch. Anna talks to us about her semi-biographical piece and the emotional story behind it.
Hello Anna, can you please tell us a bit more about yourself and your work? How has your career as a performer started?
Hi. I studied theatre at university with an eye to I’m not sure what. But, I knew that I loved stories, creating them, hearing them and that for me, the live sharing of stories, was an opportunity to explore the world.
I began volunteering at an arts charity in East London where I was living, Hackney Shed, and they changed my life, as more than 10 years later I have never left. Hackney Shed works with young people inclusively, actively including those with learning disabilities, who are neuro divergent, who have metal health needs or other barriers to access (financial barriers, caring responsibilities and others). I am currently the Creative Participation Lead, which means I get to write and direct in collaboration with the young people on at least 3 shows a year.
I took a long performance break, but about 7 years ago I got into improvised comedy which exposed me to the freedom in taking risks and in letting yourself fail. I now train weekly and run a monthly night in London with my team Rhinoceros.
The topic of inherited trauma can be quite sensitive and complex. Why have you decided to make a comedy show about it?
For me, comedy is an accessible way to explore overwhelming and emotionally difficult topics. By holding something in a comedy bucket people who are not personally affected by the specific issue will also hopefully feel that this is a show that they might enjoy, that is of interest to them.
At the same time, by making the story in the show as specific as possible comedy just naturally occurs. All lives have comedy and tragedy in them and in Going Deutsch I have tried to be really alert to noticing where the two overlap, and they really do.
I also think when you are third generation from such a monumental and devastating event, the way trauma can manifest is surprising, you don’t know it’s there, it sneaks up on you and its origin isn’t always clear. And that in itself can be quite comic.
The sensitivity is in holding space for the pain which can be even more affecting when it comes in the middle of comedy. This very much mirrors the experience of inherited trauma, you are just living your life and suddenly something touches something deep inside that might be impossible to be trace but is also unignorable.
You’ve mentioned that you’re a grandchild of survivors and that’s how you were able to claim back your German citizenship after Brexit. Would you like to share this family story with us?
We used my Nanny (my mums mum) to reclaim citizenship. Her name was Ruth, which is also part of my name. Ruth was born in Ulm in Germany, was forced to leave school aged 12 and worked for a short time as a young teenager in the Jewish hospital in Hamburg, where she spent Kristallnacht unscrewing lightbulbs trying to make Nazis fall down the stairs.
Ruth had a visa to the USA, but when it came to it, the captain wouldn’t let her on the boat as they said ‘we already have too many Jews on here’. The story she told us was that eventually, at the age of 17, she was taken on to a small fishing boat with a circus family and brought over to Hull before living in Stirling, then Glasgow and finally in London.
Ruth kept excellent paper work of all her IDs and the name changes and status changes imposed on her by the Nazis were all very clear, so actually reclaiming the passport from an admin point of view was very easy.
How did you find creating such a semi-biographical piece?
Me and my Nanny, Ruth, were very close. I am the youngest granddaughter and I think by the time I came along Ruth had more time and was talking more about her past, her identity. I always wanted to make something about the experience of not quite being in a culture, or lost culture but it took a long time for me to work out what that would be.
What’s next? What should we look out for from you in the future?
I am really hoping to take Going Deutsch further. Currently I am doing the majority of the production elements myself and I would love to work with a design team on the show. My real dream for this show would be to tour it internationally. I would love it to start conversations amongst diaspora families, Jewish and not, about connections, roots and ideas about going back.
I would also very much like to take it across Europe, specifically Germany and discover how people feel about it there, to see how I feel working there, as a citizen. Beyond that I am continuing to write with and for young people, perform improv and have a new personal projects quietly brewing in the back of my mind that I hope to start germinating in the next couple of years
