Marcus Freed’s one-man show The Lost World is a highly innovative play, taking the audience back to pre-war Poland and offering a glimpse of what was lost during the Holocaust.

The story is told through the eyes of a mezuza fixed to the door of each of the characters featured in the play - Devorah the Yiddish theatre actress, Chaim the apprentice baker, Reb Finkle the baker, Srulik the street urchin and Zev the Bundist.

Throughout the play, which he performed Monday night at Hebrew University, Freed transforms himself into each of the characters, returning to the theme of the mezuza to link the snippets of Jewish life together.

One message of the story is to remind viewers that the lives of people - living, breathing, thinking, and dreaming - were the real loss in the Holocaust.

Originally from England, Freed was brought to Israel by Archeological Seminars to perform for a variety of young audiences on programs from abroad. The next phase of his tour will bring him to South Africa and New York.

Following each performance, the floor is opened to audience participation for comments and feedback about the play and the feelings it evokes.

And for Freed, that’s the point of these performances.

"There’s a great demand for Jewish theater," says Freed.

"It’s an important function. The role of Jewish theatre doesn’t compromise the art of theater, but heightens the cultural dimension".

"The prophet Elijah would not sit down for coffee at Starbucks," Marcus Freed says confidently. "He would obliterate it."

Solomon "slept with a lot of people and got in trouble for it, Job would be on Prozac if he lived today," Freed adds, and the judge Deborah "would not be the kind of person you would want on a date."

He muses for a moment.

"Or maybe you would."

Performing plays about biblical characters involves walking something of a tightrope

"I'm remaining true to the Biblical text" he says. "I'm not bastardizing it, not trying to twist it, preach, convert or missionize."

There is an educational aspect to his work, he says, "but that's a side thing. I want to entertain the audience."

That's part of the reason he's made sure the pieces have strong comic elements.

Freed is part of a tradition of fusing theater and education that includes the Besht Tellers and Joyce Klein, says educator Joel Grishaver, who has worked with the British actor.

Grishaver expects Freed to go over well when he performs in the United States this month.

"He's a wonderfully charismatic person, and, of course, he has a British accent, which feeds into all our American fantasies about real actors being British," Grishaver says.

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