Ingrid Garner wrote and stars in ‘Eleanor’s Story’: a theatrical adaptation of her grandmother Eleanor Ramrath Garner’s award-winning autobiography of her youth, growing up as an American caught in World War II Berlin. During the Great Depression, when she is nine, Eleanor’s family moves from her beloved America to Germany, where her father has been offered a good job. But war breaks out as her family is crossing the Atlantic, and they cannot return to the United States. Eleanor tries to maintain her American identity as she feels herself pulled into the turbulent life roiling around her. She fervently hopes for an Allied victory, yet for years she must try to survive the Allied bombs shattering her neighborhood. Her family faces hunger, fascist oppression, bombings, the final fierce battle for Berlin, the Russian invasion, and the terrors of Soviet occupancy.
“An amazing theatrical experience that delivers a unique historical perspective!”—Eric Marchese, Orange County Register
WINNER – Best Theatre Weekly Award, Adelaide Fringe
WINNER – Critic’s Choice Award, FringeWorld Perth
“★★★★★ Garner is incredibly talented and connects deeply with the story and characters!”—FringeReview.co.uk
“★★★★★ Garner completely embodies the vulnerability of the child, the terror of Berlin during the air raids, and also the joy of survival!”—The Advertiser (Adelaide, Australia)
“★★★★★ Garner’s remarkable abilities certainly do her grandmother’s story justice, and it’s a poignant show that will resonate with you for some time.”—The Adelaide Review
“★★★★★ Ingrid Garner seems genetically coded to deliver this unusual war story. Such power and conviction does she bring to the role that one forgets entirely that it is not her own story, that she is not Eleanor. She is a very beautiful young woman with a good voice and excellent dramatic discipline. She performs wearing a very simple but exquisite frock and scant makeup. Her props are just a travel trunk and two chairs and there is a small screen on which a few crucial images are projected to illustrate the history she is describing.
Her audience emerges from the plush little tent theatre into the hot early evening still misty-eyed from the seeming immediacy of her bomb-shattering vignettes and just a bit in love with this marvellous American girl for being no less than the sacred keeper of her grandmother’s story.”—The Barefoot Review (Adelaide, Australia)
5-minute Trailer:
https://vimeo.com/offendingshadows/es-trailer2015
Learn More at eleanorsstory.com
