THE STORY

The underlying theme of the Sarah Arthur Folk Musical is the search for personal meaning as it overlaps with the struggle for the freedom of all oppressed people.

It is clear from Sarah’s beginnings and Holocaust family history that she was blessed and cursed with a family DNA that motivated and drove her to seek freedom not only for herself but for others.

At an early age she incorporated her history into work for world peace which later developed into her activism with Central American refugees. She realized that her place as a Jew in the world was not only defined by the Jewish struggle for freedom, but by the struggle of all oppressed people.

That is made clear in the song and chant Never Again Means Never Again. In Buddhist terms, Sarah followed the Mahayana path, the path that holds that enlightenment can never be truly reached until all people are enlightened.

Although Sarah was engaged politically with the global struggle for freedom, she is ultimately defined by her family. When she becomes a mother to two children, she attempts to impart the wisdom and moral structure that she developed in her younger activist years to her children, which she realizes is never guaranteed in the song Better World.

Sarah’s life is always filled with conflict both internal and external. Her path for meaning goes back and forth from working to fight unfair oppressive systems to living in a community that reflects her values. At the end of her life, she finds peace when she comes to the realization that death is the great equalizer. She makes herself ready to board and navigate the same ferry boat that the fictional character Siddhartha from Hermann Hesse’s novel of the Buddha did as well.

The Sarah Arthur crew hopes that this Folk Musical of Sarah Arthur will do its part to give meaning to those who seek it.