Some couples break up because they argue about money or child-rearing. Then there’s Hannah and Martin, who broke up because he was a Nazi Party apologist and she was a German Jew running for her life in the 1930s.
Philosophers Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger were unlikely lovers and intellectual soul mates. They met in the 1920s, were separated by war, only to reconnect after the Holocaust. Their story provides fodder for Kate Fodor’s “Hannah and Martin,” now at the San Jose Repertory Theatre.
The play won the 2002 Kennedy Center Roger L. Stevens Award and made its New York debut last year. This new production marks the play’s West Coast premiere.
With two philosophers as its main characters, much of “Hannah and Martin” is about a clash of ideas. But underneath, suggests Robert Krakovski (who plays Heidegger to Stacy Ross’ Arendt), it’s a love story. Sort of.
“They became the passion of each others’ lives,” says the actor. Heidegger “found his muse through her, a companion who could understand him.”
Arendt impacted the popular lexicon having coined the phrase “the banality of evil.” Heidegger was both mentor and lover when she studied under him, and he went on to become one of the last century’s leading philosophers. His reputation suffered after he signed the Nazi pledge in the early days of the Third Reich, though he later recanted.
“He was breaking new ground when it came to philosophical thought,” adds Krakovski. “At the early stages of the Nazi era, he had a vision of Germany lifted out of depression through art and culture.”
It wasn’t good enough for Arendt, who became active in pro-Jewish politics in prewar Germany. For this she was incarcerated twice, yet managed to escape to America. She became a citizen and over time emerged as one of the great thinkers of her day.
During the ’40s, Heidegger became philosopher non grata to the Nazis because of several veiled criticisms. The Gestapo tailed him, and eventually he was forced to dig ditches. After the war, a panel stripped him of his teaching posts, though he was later reinstated.
Returning to Germany to cover the Nuremberg trials, Arendt reconnected with Heidegger, whom she had previously denounced.
“In the play, [Arendt] visits him,” says Krakovski. “After their meeting, she becomes a defender of his. Others continued to reject him because he refused to denounce
his involvement [with the Nazis]. He was a prideful man, and to say he was wrong would have been saying his ideals and philosophy were flawed.”
Though Hannah and Martin are both heady characters, the actor does not fear going over the heads of the audience.
“It’s there on the page,” he says. “The play doesn’t get too heavy with the intellectual. All the elements — the philosophy, the literary — are presented in an engaging way.”
And what is it like to play a man accused of coddling the Nazi regime?
“I don’t believe [Heidegger] was anti-Semitic,” says Krakovski. “When there was an attack on Nietzsche regarding his philo-Semitic attitudes, Heidegger translated some of the writings. The party wanted him to excise anything pro-Jewish, but he refused. Besides, he knew Hannah was Jewish.”
“Hannah and Martin” plays 8 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 2 and 7 p.m. Sundays, through May 29, at San Jose Repertory Theatre, 101 Paseo de San Antonio, San Jose. Tickets: $26-$52. Information: (408) 367-7255 or www.sjrep.com.