Total verrückt is the German equivalent of “stark raving mad.” It was the ironic title of a musical revue performed, ironically and defiantly, in a Nazi concentration camp. Westerbork was a Dutch transit camp where Jews were held pending transport to the extermination camps in Germany and Poland (Anne Frank passed through there on the way to her death). Total Verrückt is also the title of Joanna Caplan’s one-woman show recalling the cabaret performers who defied the Nazis and their own fear by mounting entertainments that temporarily postponed their fate. Caplan, a resident artist at Double Edge Theatre, interweaves the rich cabaret world of pre-war Germany with stories of the Jewish stars who plied their art at Westerbork “as a means of survival and an act of resistance.”

Dec. 6-7, Double Edge Theatre, 948 Conway Rd., Ashfield. Info at joannacaplan.ca, reservations (413) 628-0277.