Patrick Dennis had his Auntie Mame, Graham Greene travelled with his Aunt Augusta, and now Andrew Steinmetz joins the ranks of eloquent nephews with his brilliant portrayal of his memorable Aunt Eva. As with Mame and Augusta, Eva breaks the mold and the rules, but in her case, there are darker, richer shadows in a life that begins as a Lutheran in pre-war Breslau and shifts unexpectedly to a Nuremberg-defined Jew escaping to Canada. Before Hitler rewrote her religious status, she defied convention by joining the theatre and performing with the first cast of Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera. Her theatrical skills were life savers, enabling her not only to flee Germany but to get herself and her dog airlifted to safety.
About the literary genetic code of Eva's Threepenny Theatre, Robin Roger of the LRC writes:
Steinmetz calls this work about his Aunt Eva a fiction about memoir, meaning that key aspects of the book are not invented, least of all the character of Eva Steinmetz, but a significant portion is. Although it is disconcerting that they are blended together without distinction, the result is a compelling, evocative work .... Eva is so fascinating a character that it is hard to know why her nephew felt the need to add fancy to fact.
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