By Kenley Beecher
This 50-minute solo performance in poetry and prose was created by Janet Rodgers while she was living in San Miguel in 2019. Directed by Dan Ruth, “GUT” is based on the autobiography of Irena Gut Opdyke titled “In My Hands.” Moving between narration (prose) and poetic form, “GUT” is the riveting true story of Irena Gut, a young Catholic Polish girl who risks her life to save countless Jewish lives from extermination by the Nazi regime during World War II. As the war ends six young Jewish professionals, whose lives she has saved, save her. Set in Poland, Ukraine, and Germany, it is a story of love, courage, and human respect.
Rodgers attributes her involvement with San Miguel’s Sunday Poetry Share as the poetic inspiration for the piece. She arrived in San Miguel with the intention of writing a piece about women who had pushed back against the Third Reich. On her first Sunday in San Miguel, she decided to attend the Poetry Share at Casa de la Noche. At this meeting, she was reminded of the power of poetry to reflect huge emotional upheaval not unlike a song does in musical theatre. She found this form quite appropriate as she approached the enormous canvas of WWII and the Holocaust.
As so often happens early on during the creative process, Janet’s writing focus shifted—from three to one Polish woman. As she started to adapt Opdyke’s autobiography for the stage, poetic forms began to flow. At the next Sunday’s Poetry Share she presented what she had written and received encouragement from fellow poets to continue writing Opdyke’s story using poetry in dramatic form. By the time she was ready to return to her home on Cape Cod “Irena Gut: Only a Girl” (now titled “GUT”) had been born. She tested it out in a salon performance at her home in San Miguel and at Shelter Theatre’s Open Mic Night. Audiences were very enthusiastic. In her Cape Cod studio, the following summer she performed the piece for neighbors and friends while developing her presentation of the work.
Since then, Rodgers has been receiving standing ovations for her performances at churches, synagogues, cultural centers, libraries, and theatres throughout the United States. Now she has returned to San Miguel to share this epic performance poem in the place of her inspiration.
Rodgers is a world-traveled writer, theatre artist, Fulbright scholar, teacher, and actress. She has taught theatre at the Boston Conservatory, American Center for the Performing Arts, and most recently she retired as Professor Emerita of Theatre from Virginia Commonwealth University. During the 1970s and early 1980s she was a classical actress with the Boston Shakespeare Company, where she played many leading roles, and at Boston’s Lyric Stage where she won “Best Actress in Boston” for her role as Hilde Wangel in Ibsen’s “The Master Builder.”
Rodgers received her BA in theatre arts and speech from Mount Holyoke College; her MFA in theatre arts from Brandeis University; and did further study at the American Center for the Performing Arts, Harvard’s American Repertory Theatre; and London’s National Theatre. She has been a Fulbright scholar to Romania and has worked extensively with the DAH Theatre of Belgrade, Serbia.
Salon performances will be held each Sunday in March and April at 5pm at the White Lantern Salon, Casa de la Noche entrance, Organos 19, Centro. Admission is 300 pesos.
