Seattle performers explore internment camps

Whitefish Theatre Company hosts Seattle-based theater troupe Living Voices as they present “Within The Silence.”

 Living Voices will perform their highly interactive, personal storytelling at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 14 at the O’Shaughnessy Center in Whitefish.

Living Voices combines dynamic solo performances with archival film to turn history into a moving, personal journey. “Within The Silence” follows Emiko Yamada as her family is forced to sell or give away their home and possessions after President Franklin Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 in 1942.

Like thousands of loyal Japanese-American families, the Yamadas were placed in an internment camp called Camp Harmony on the site of the Washington State Fair. They were eventually sent to the Minidoka internment camp in Idaho, where they lived in dusty, cramped conditions with flimsy wooden barracks and unfamiliar food. Emi’s father was taken away by the FBI to a special camp in Montana.

The play follows these innocent citizens as they struggle to maintain their families while living in the camps, as well as fight to sustain faith and love in the country they love.

Lily Gladstone is the performer who will serve as storyteller for “Within the Silence.”

“To perform the stories of real people and real experience carries a heavy responsibility,” she says.

It is one of the goals of Living Voices to awaken the imagination and change the way people experience history, inviting audiences to walk in the shoes of the characters and go on their personal historical journeys with them.

Tickets are $15 for adults and $8 for students with reserved seating. Purchase tickets at the box office, 1 Central Ave., Whitefish, at www.whitefishtheatreco.org or by calling 862-5371.  Box office hours are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and one hour before a performance.

For more information about Living Voices, visit www.livingvoices.org.