Interview: Ingrid Garner of ELEANOR'S STORY Talks Her Grandmother Eleanor's Story

To actress and playwright Ingrid Garner, her grandmother, Eleanor Ramrath Garner, is a modern day Snow White. "She's trained many blue jays to eat peanuts from her hand," says the performer.

However, the Eleanor Ramrath Garner she depicts in ELEANOR'S STORY: AN AMERICAN GIRL IN HITLER'S GERMANY, her evocative, 70 minute one-woman show adapted from her grandmother's autobiography of the same name, is very different.

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Eleanor came of age in the cruelty of Hitler's Berlin, then the brutality of the Soviet occupation. Though American-born Eleanor spoke German and her parents were of German descent, which helped her assimilate, young Eleanor struggled with her identity. The war amplified her struggle. The United States was no friend to fascist Germany. "It put her in this difficult position where she was really hoping for an Allied victory for all seven years of the war but, in the meantime, she's being bombed and almost killed constantly by the same people."

"Amazingly, their apartment building was really the only one standing in the area by the end of the war."

But there were more challenges. "[Eleanor's family] started out as a family of four but, because they were Catholic, they had two more children during the war," says Garner.

And more challenges-the Soviets were merciless. Bread rations were 3 slices of bread per day. Each slice with cockroaches baked right into them.

Remarkably, the play is not without its shimmers of hope. "[Eleanor] makes this somewhat bearable for the audience. She is a very magical, charming young child and she sees magic in the world around her. That's her coping mechanism."

And the practicalities provide fun moments. Young Eleanor still worried about when her breasts would sprout, when her period would come, or what the boys may think. During our discussion, Garner shares an endearingly human anecdote about her grandmother's reaction after the first performance of ELEANOR'S STORY. (Outside of loving it, of course.) "She gasped then said, 'I can't believe you talked about my period!'" Garner replied, "It was in the book grandma. It's fair game."

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It is all in the book. Writing along with reading were a safe-haven for the young Eleanor, so it naturally follows that an adult Eleanor would commit her harrowing experiences to paper. Like grandmother, Like granddaughter; Garner commits the story to paper and memory, too.

In summer of 2013-at the time a 20-year-old California State University, Fullerton Theatre Arts Major-attended Canada's Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival with Vaudeville-Nouveau troupe Sound & Fury. She was instantly enamoured with the festival offerings. Her admiration quickly turned to inspiration as she began to consider offering her own contribution to the theatre event.

Though Garner read the autobiography at age 10, it took a nudge from Sound & Fury Artistic Director and, not coincidentally, ELEANOR'S STORY producer Richard Maritzer for her to pursue the thread. She quickly saw the value and impact that such a play could have. "It's so chilling to see the blood of that history on the stage performing it."

"In my process, I asked people who'd read the book what they thought of as the most striking and active motifs from her story. And I strung them together and created my thematic arc out of that." She had to cut some stories and events out but she has worked to present the same themes and motifs found in the book. "Survival, coming-of-age, finding courage, and a will-to-live after horrific experiences, and identity. I think those themes run throughout the book and also throughout the play."

In ELEANOR'S STORY, Garner will portray a broad range of characters and ages. In addition to portraying her grandmother, Garner will depict her grand uncle, great-grandfather, and great-grandmother. She employs a variety of theatrical techniques to tell the story-the actor's chameleon-like ability to contort the body and voice, costume, sound effect and voice over, and projection.

Surprisingly, her grandmother was not the most difficult role to write. Nor is she the most difficult role to perform. Garner put a lot of herself into the character. She has a special connection with her grandmother. "Out of everyone in the family, I probably look the most like her."

Imagination also runs in the family. "I would talk to trees like my grandmother does, when I was a little girl. I think, even now, both of us still like to find magic in the world." Clearly. Garner is working on a children's storytelling show-an unorthodox project considering the serious subject matter of her current monodrama. Or perhaps it's a clever, calculated move to avoid being pigeonholed as an artist.

So I ask the question. Does she fear ELEANOR'S STORY will define her entire career just as it has begun? "I fear that everything else I write from now on won't measure up to this initial masterpiece. I'm afraid that nothing else will be this good."

Godspeed, Garner.

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ELEANOR'S STORY, presented by Theater LaB Houston, runs through November 15 at MATCH (matchouston.org). See thelabhou.org or matchouston.org for more information.

Photos courtesy of Ingrid Garner

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