Theatre and a Show? ‘Here There Are Blueberries’ Proves Audiences are Truth Seeking in the Age of Falsity

by Connie Say

There is a certain deliberateness exercised when taking a picture, irrespective of how posed or candid the composition may be. It can be distilled down to a simple binary. What do you choose to keep in the frame? What do you choose to keep out of the frame?  

I sat down in my seat at Stratford East: a compact 460-seat Victorian theatre house, with a bar that did half pints, well maintained ablutions, and seats that felt incredibly close together. 

A pleasant elderly couple sat to my right. They were kind, and thoughtful in what they said. The couple held the programme between them, like they were sharing a hymn sheet at mass. Meanwhile, I sat there, and I stirred in my own angst, tossing up if I should stand for an ovation at the end of this play, or if it was even appropriate for me to be having a drink. 

Before the performance began, a camera, branded ‘Leica’ was presented on stage; it was boxed in by a white square of light, as twinkly Jazz was fed into the auditorium. The opening scene to this play? Essentially, an advert for Leica cameras: a high-end and popular camera brand, that was revered in 20th century Germany for it’s ease of use and portability. A series of photos taken on the camera flashed up on the screen once the house curtains were pulled back. It revealed images of smiling family portraits that bled into snapshots of sunny holidays. The screen then flashed white – someone changes the film – to reveal a family portrait which shimmered under the Leica lights. That of Eltern, and gappy-toothed Kinder, with swastikas on their arms, demonstrating a salute. It was a Nazi family portrait.  

The theatre was very quiet. The seats felt very close together.  

Here There Are Blueberries is a Pulitzer Prize nominated piece of theatre. It is based on real events, whereby in 2007 a photo album was donated to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. The photo album contained hundreds of photographs, depicting Nazi guards relaxing, flirting, and spending their free time with Helferinnen at the chalets in Auschwitz, of which were built by the Jewish prisoners of war. 

The album functioned like a memory book. It was a collection of Höcker’s ‘fondest moments’, with hand written captions to each photograph he took. In this case, Höcker, refers to Karl-Friedrich Höcker – the right hand man to he ‘head guard’ at Auschwitz.

It was a drizzly February afternoon. In fact, it was Valentine’s Day, and I had also just seen my old secondary school DT teacher on my way to the theatre bar. It was like an amalgamation or sequence of unsymptomatic moments, one after the other after the other. The bar. The Holocaust. Stratford. DT Teacher. 460 people. Elderly Couple. Me. The show was doing a 35-day run in Stratford, but the play’s genesis can be traced back to a workshop production at Miami New Drama’s Colony Theatre in Miami, 2018. From there, The first performance of the show was in 2022 at the La Jolla Playhouse, California [1], and it most recently ran off-broadway in New York in April 2024. The set up of the show, and its sustained run, intrigued me.

The play was advertised to me on social media, and I bought my ticket quickly. I chose the 14th February performance as I was free that day. But I noticed that on other show dates, audiences had the option to attend a post-show event: a moderated conversation between ethics and scholars from FASPE (Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics). These tickets were nearly all sold out. 

At the plays’ recent showing at the end of February, FASPE facilitated the following talk:  

I was interested not only by the critical Pulitzer acclaim and contents of the show, but its subsequent talks with FASPE. For a near sold out, matinee performance, in the middle of Stratford, on Valentine’s Day, I wondered why so many people were turning out to learn about the Holocaust.   

In part, Here There Are Blueberries speaks to a larger idea.  

Firstly, consider the popularity of run clubs, book clubs, therapy, ice plunges, Duolingo, Imprint, and so on. Perhaps they’re trivial individually. But when cumulatively put together, a pattern seems to emerge. One where by people are prioritising ‘Wellness’. This is represented by limiting screen time, or making sure one hits 10,000 steps a day. Overall, there is a pursuit towards health, happiness, and knowledge. The latter could come in the form attending such events as those with FASPE.

Secondly, in a digital age of AI, ‘Brain Rot’ and instantaneousness, it feels as though we’re losing touch with what is authentic all-together. Social media, and the short life span of trends and fame, is fundamentally changing our use of language and physical gestures [2]. Non-sensical mannerisms and phrases spread like wildfire, especially amongst young people – the slang phrase ‘6 7’ seems to have no clear definition, where its own popularity is nourished and fed by its own absurdity and misunderstanding. [3] Furthermore, AI is wiping out job markets and facilitating the mass underfunding of creative industries, where humans can be ‘out-resourced’. This is seen in industries like Advertising, where the IPA are estimating 24% of all agencies are expected to cut jobs directly as a result of AI this year [4]. The Times also reports that 2.4million creative jobs that contributed over £125 billion to the British economy are at risk from AI [5]. 

Now it seems obvious. Of course the theatre was full?  

When there is so much illegitimacy, fragmentation, and sadness in the world, anywhere from fake news to the bastardised and illegal uses of apps such as Grok [6], or from ICE to the Middle East, it feels necessary to produce human work – creative, philanthropic, clear, educational, non-AI work. Here There Are Blueberries speaks to a social want to learn from history’s mistakes and be better for one another. It also represents creative expression that works as the antidote to instantaneous, vacuous, social media Brain Rot.

The horrors depicted (and not depicted) in Höcker’s photo album only happened 80 years ago. We are not out of the woods.  

At the end of the show, everyone clapped, and no one stood for an ovation. It wasn’t about the actors that afternoon. The lights then came on: bright like the flash of a Leica: and 460 people were very quiet and very still.

Here There Are Blueberries is a genuine force for good, and punches way above its’ weight. This show’s strengths doesn’t lie in the calibre of the acting or beauty of the set design. The strength of the play lies in the messages it’s telling, and in its formatting. It functions like a real-time documentary. It draws breath from your chest and hangs it in the air for 90 minutes. From the first beat to the very last, this show had my admiration. My trip to Stratford East (I’m delighted to say) showed me that people aren’t coming to the theatre to merely escape. All types of people: the young, the old, the students, the teachers, the couples, the singles, the theatre-frequenters, and the theatre-newbies, are all going to watch a play to learn something. 

Here There Are Blueberries pivots on the photo album of one man, and when the choices societies are making are so clearly in frame, we cannot refuse to look away now. 

References

[1] New York Theatre Workshop, “Here There Are Blueberries”, New York Theatre Workshop, Web. https://www.nytw.org/show/here-there-are-blueberries/

[2] Jones, Daisy. “Why TikTok Has Everyone Talking And Acting The Same”. GQ. 22/04/24 https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/tiktok-universal-body-language-explained 

[3] The Guardian, “‘Six-seven: What does the latest slang mean (and should parents be worried)?” Pass Notes: Young People, The Guardian, 20/10/25 https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/oct/20/six-seven-latest-slang-should-parents-be-worried

[4] Sweney, Mark. “UK Ad Agencies Undergo their Biggest Exodus of Staff as AI Theatrends Industry”. The Guardian. 13/02/26 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/13/uk-ad-agencies-biggest-annual-exodus-of-staff-ai-threatens-industry  

[5] Morrison, Richard. “All 2.4m of Britain’s Creative Workers are at Risk – And We Know Why”. The Times https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/ai-creative-industries-acting-art-jobs-risk-l29hvgjdx?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=AWEtsqc41VoCBWu5sUOX1KlbKyT9vySY5x6d4sD2jkdoAK1NIGFVANLf_UMRJUhjinw%3D&gaa_ts=69a6d7a7&gaa_sig=bP8oXX1OBZkAC-IZftAqeCf0BmoawM-An1rKeBC4H4qrVKc-AJj6TnKEzIQoFhISaLCFHMx4FqK2HpcnARMD5Q%3D%3D  

[6] Oxford University, “Expert Comment: Chatbot-driven sexual abuse? The Grok case is just the tip of the iceberg”. University of Oxford News Website. 14/01/26 https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-01-14-expert-comment-chatbot-driven-sexual-abuse-grok-case-just-tip-iceberg