Because You Never Asked
Returning to the Fringe from Montréal acclaimed company, We All Fall Down Interdisciplinary Creations, presents Because You Never Asked in the intimate surroundings of Summerhall’s Main Hall.
About Because You Never Asked
We All Fall Down are returning to Edinburgh’s Festival Fringe after a hugely successful Fringe debut in 2023 with PAPILLON. Because You Never Asked is part of Québec’s annual Edinburgh Festivals showcase, Québec @EdFests, which has brought some of the best and most popular shows at Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Because You Never Asked is an interdisciplinary piece blending dance, music and storytelling to chronicle a poignant moment of intergenerational exchange. At its core is a series of conversations between creator Roger White and his grandmother, Marianna Clark (née Goldmann), about a hidden life lived under the Nazi regime.
The performance blends a haunting soundscape, featuring recorded conversations, with evocative choreography that serves to embody memory.
The project is rooted in the remarkable true story of Marianna Clark (née Goldmann), Roger White’s grandmother, who was born in Germany in 1922 and grew up near Hamburg in a Jewish-Christian family. In 1939, after the passage of the Nuremberg Laws and the revocation of their citizenship, Marianna’s family fled Nazi Germany for Edinburgh.
For years, these experiences remained unspoken, until recent conversations between Marianna and her grandson opened a window onto her memories. When Roger asked her why she had never shared these stories before, her answer was simple: “Because you never asked.”
Blending excerpts from Marianna’s diaries, written while studying in Edinburgh during her late teens and early twenties, with recordings of Roger’s conversations with Marianna in her 90s, the piece unfolds across two interwoven timelines. Past and present collide to explore how our personal histories are shaped, re-shaped and sometimes rewritten over time.
Edinburgh plays a central role in this deeply personal story. During her time in the city, Marianna was a student at the Polish School of Medicine at The University of Edinburgh, a unique wartime initiative created to meet the needs of students and doctors in the Polish armed forces between 1941-1949. She was among the first five women ever admitted to the school, which marked a groundbreaking moment in both medical and women’s education during the war.
Now, decades later, Marianna’s story returns to Edinburgh – brought to life at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, just streets away from where she once lived and studied.
This interdisciplinary work is a cautionary tale that highlights the perils of anti-immigrant narratives, told through stories that shift between humour and darkness while documenting the slow march toward authoritarianism. It is a heartwarming reminder to honour the wisdom of those who came before us, and to hold on to the memory of those we cherish most.
Founded in 2019, We All Fall Down (WAFD) is a non-profit organisation that supports and promotes creation, research, presentation and innovation in dance, music and theatre through interdisciplinary artistic propositions. WAFD formalises the 20-year collaboration between choreographer Helen Simard and composer Roger White.
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