On the Border

On the Border is a dream play that explores German-Jewish cultural critic Walter Benjamin’s final night on earth.

Turned back at the Spanish border in 1940 as he is fleeing the Nazis, the German-Jewish cultural critic Walter Benjamin, in a dreamlike phantasmagoria, conjures up from memory Bertolt Brecht, Gerschom Scholem, Hannah Arendt, Theodor Adorno; and from imagination Franz Kafka and Charles Baudelaire. His civilized world has vanished, overwhelmed by barbarism. He gambles with death on this pivotal last night on earth.