In Quest of Conscience

Adapted by Robert David MacDonald from Gitta Sereny's Into That Darkness

"Robert David MacDonald's In Quest of Conscience, based on Gitta Sereny's Into That Darkness, a record of her interviews with death camp commandant Franz Stangl, takes it for granted that the Holocaust was a shocking crime against humanity; what it wants to know, with an urgency amounting to desperation, is how it happened, and how it can be prevented from happening again." - Joyce Macmillan, Scotland on Sunday

"Stangl... bureaucrat of death who administered as massive an evil as the Holocaust in the same routine spirit in which he would have administered butter rationing ... What manner of man can be responsible for the slaughter of 1,200,000 of his fellows in the space of 14 months?" - Joseph Farrell, The Scotsman

"Plays such as In Quest of Conscience are messengers of the unspeakable, which is why they should be listened to as this powerful, dignified piece was in complete moral silence." - John Peter, The Sunday Times

"A brilliant and important play which is based on the actual interviews with the death camp commandant Franz Stragl by Gitta Sereny searching desperately to discover how the Holocaust happened, how one worked and lived with it, and how to prevent it occurring again" Blanche Marvin

Auteur

Robert David MacDonald (1929-2004) was born in Elgin, Scotland. After originally training as a musician, he worked as a Director, Playwright and Translator. As an Assistant Director, he worked at both the Glyndebourne Opera Festival and for the Royal Opera House. In 1971, he became Co-Artistic Director of the Glasgow Citizens Theatre, where he directed fifty plays and wrote fifteen for the venue before his retirement in 2003. The plays that he wrote for the Glasgow Citz include The De Sade Show (1975), Chinchilla (1977), Summit Conference (1978), also seen in the West End with Glenda Jackson and Gary Oldman, A Waste of Time (1980), Don Juan (1980), Webster (1983), Britannicus (2002) and Cheri (2003). As a translator, MacDonald translated over seventy different plays and opera from over ten different languages including The Threepenny Opera, Tamerlano, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, The Marriage of Figaro, Orpheus and The Human Voice, Conversation at Night, Shadow of Angels, The Balcony, The Government Inspector, Tasso, Faust I and II, Ibsen's Brand and Hedda Gabler, Lermontov's Maskerade, Lorca's The House of Bernarda Alba, Molière's School for Wives and Don Juan, Pirandello's Enrico Four, Racine's Phèdre, Schiller's Mary Stuart, The Maid of Orleans and Don Carlos, Chekhov's The Seagull, Verne's Around the World In Eighty Days, Wedekind's Lulu and Goethe's Clavigo. His adaptation of War and Peace ran for two seasons on Broadway and received an Emmy award when shown on U.S television. The Finborough Theatre has previously presented Robert David MacDonald's versions of Rolf Hochhuth's Soldiers (2004) and The Representative (2006)