Shay Mace
Content Warning: Discussion of Genocide
Christopher C Gibbs is bringing Wiesenthal to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe next month, a play based on the life of Simon Wiesenthal, who survived the Holocaust and devoted the rest of his life to bringing Nazi war criminals to justice. Filled with hope, humanity and humour, Christopher says it is the true story of an ordinary man who did extraordinary things. We caught up with him for a pixelated pint to find out what’s led him to bringing the story to the EdFringe stage.
You can catch Wiesenthal at Dining Room at Gilded Balloon Teviot on August 6th – 30th from 13:15 (50mins). Tickets are available through the Gilded Balloon Online Box Office.
Shay: Hi Christopher, tell us about Wiesenthal and why you have decided to bring this story to the stage now?
Christopher: Wiesenthal is a play by Tom Dugan based on the life of Simon Wiesenthal. Simon was a man who survived the Holocaust and devoted the rest of his life to bringing to justice the people who had organized and operated the Holocaust, getting them into court where they would have to testify, under oath, what they had done. Simon provides a magnificent example of a man committed to justice… not to revenge… not to punishment… to justice. To remembering.
Shay: How has the creative process been of putting the show together? Give us an idea of the journey you’ve been on with it so far.
Christopher: A student of mine (I was teaching history at the time.) saw the show when Tom did it in New York, suggested I see it, and, if I thought I could do it, perform it at Temple Sinai in Summit, New Jersey, where my student and his wife worshiped. I said I could, if Mark Liebert directed and Judi Liebert was stage manager. He said OK and so we started working. We were scheduled to perform in April, 2020, but the Pandemic intervened and we were delayed. (I was actually in a production of The Diary of Anne Frank, which was closed down.) Mark and Judi and I kept working on the show, finally performing it at Temple Sinai and in community theatres in New Jersey as the Pandemic eased.
Shay: What will be the first thing the audience sees, feels, and hears as they enter the space?
Christopher: As the lights come up, the audience sees Simon in his office, on the telephone…something they’ll see often through the play. The office is a jumble as he is packing up to close the office on this, his last day of work. He dismisses his caller, stands, and greets this, his last group of students. Simon aways likes to open with a joke…so he does. And there will be others throughout, because Simon is a storyteller. But, as he says, “It is not my goal to produce tears.”
Shay: What are you hoping the audience might take away from the experience, if anything?
Christopher: The message Simon wants these students to take with them is, Remember! He repeats this message in a variety of ways, but that is always the message, because, as he says, “If we do not try to understand how it happened then, it will happen now.”
Shay: What journey has the show been on to find itself at EdFringe 2026?
Christopher: In 2022, my wife, Nancy, and I were at the Fringe, dashing from show to show, and suddenly she said, “Why don’t we bring Simon to the Fringe next year?” She would produce. I agreed and we began as soon as we got home, tremendously appreciative of the way the Fringe makes it easy to sign up and find a venue for our show. We spent hours going through the wide variety on-line until we found the right one. We enlisted the expertise of James Seabright as general manager. Then we packed up and flew to Edinburgh. After a successful run in 2023 at the Fringe, we did a short run at The King’s Head in London in 2024. After a brief rest, we all began gearing up, and earlier this year we took Wiesenthal to the Adelaide Fringe for a sold-out run.
Shay: With EdFringe now just around the corner, what are you most excited for?
Christopher: I can’t wait to do the show again. We have been working on it for years, hard, intensive work, going over every detail, every nuance. It is to the brilliance of Tom’s script that we have never gotten bored with it, never felt it get stale or routine. It continues to challenge us. As we see around us the rise of men hungry for power and utterly without conscience in the ways they achieve it, as we see it happening again, we remain convinced that this show must be performed. It must be seen. I often feel powerless in the face of grotesque state violence, self-obsessed thugs, and monstrous injustice…but one thing I can do is stand on a stage and bring Simon Wiesenthal, and his message, to life for an audience. Remember.
Shay: Given the themes of Binge Fringe, if your show was a beverage of any kind (alcoholic, non-alcoholic – be as creative as you like!), what would it be and why?
Christopher: Simon drinks water three times during the show: first to take his medication, then to recover his voice after he describes something truly horrible, finally to settle in his memory a message he has just shared with the audience. So, yes, water—water to get better, water to speak out, water to remember.
A reminder, you can catch Wiesenthal at Dining Room at Gilded Balloon Teviot on August 6th – 30th from 13:15 (50mins). Tickets are available through the Gilded Balloon Online Box Office.
Roe McDonnell
Noe Productions
