Incident at Vichy is a one-act play written in 1964 by American dramatist Arthur Miller. It tells, in real time, the story of a group of detainees in Vichy France in 1942.  Through their conversations we come to understand that they are all being held by the Nazis for various reasons. Some are Jews, others Socialist, Unionist, Homosexual, Intellectual, or Romani. Among them is a Laborer, an Artist, an Actor, a Waiter, a Psychiatrist, a Businessman, a Child, and a Catholic Prince.

The play focuses on how guilt and fear can drive us towards complicity. The play suggests that we are mutually responsible for each other without exception and examines how the Nazis were able to perpetrate the Holocaust with so little public resistance. Miller said of Incident at Vichy, "What is dark, if not unknown, is the relationship between those who side with justice and their implication in the evil they oppose…The good and the evil are not compartments but two elements of a transaction.”

We are presenting the play outside of specific time and place, leaning on the masks that we wear to define who we are. In the world of the play there is danger in the truth of one’s identity, in the unmasking. So too, albeit in a different way, in ours.

The staging preserves the requirements of social distancing while allowing us to highlight the ways in which these characters are alone, despite their shared space. They are isolated…together.

Through costuming and staging we were able to make art that uses the reality of the pandemic to elevate our storytelling, rather than allowing it to be a limitation. We are not simply doing our best to present a play under these circumstances, we are presenting the play in a way that relies on those very circumstances to reveal some of its more essential truths.

We are so proud of the work, and hope that it rings true, and rings out a warning about the state of our world. Thank you.

"The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference" - Ian Kershaw

Our presentations take place in the historic Spragg Auditorium. As we prepare our work we do so with acknowledgement of the Lenape Haki-nk (Lenni Lenape): The first inhabitants and caretakers of the unceded land of present day Wilmington, Delaware on which Spragg Auditorium and Salesianum School are situated, where we work, where we learn, where we create. 

We acknowledge the Lenape people's painful history of genocide and forced removal, honor their ancestors, and pay respects to their continued present and emerging presence.

You can visit www.native-land.ca to locate yourself and acknowledge the native communities in your area.