Be specific. It’s advice that writers get all the time. Readers can glaze over at statistics that prove a point or yawn at vague descriptions, but take them inside an experience with vivid details and they’re more likely to stay with you as you make a point or spin a story.
For example, if you wish to discuss the Holocaust that swept through Europe in the 1930s and ‘40s, leaving millions dead in its wake — most of them Jewish — the scope of the Nazi industrialized extermination process can be so overwhelming that one couldn’t be blamed for avoiding the topic, purely for emotional self-preservation.
But listen to a captivating story of how one person found a way to survive the carnage and you could find it grippingly dramatic. Such a tale is the picaresque odyssey of Eddie Jaku, a Jew from Leipzig, Germany, who was an adolescent when the Nazis came to power, yet found his way through the horrors of the Holocaust and lived to the age of 101 before dying earlier this decade.
JC Cutler stars in Six Points Theater’s production of “The Happiest Man on Earth,” a solo show by Mark St. Germain based upon the memoir of Eddie Jaku, who recounts his experiences during the Holocaust and his healing process afterward. The show runs through Feb. 8, 2026 at Six Points Theater in St. Paul. (Sarah Whiting / Six Points Theater)
It’s to our great benefit that Jaku wrote a memoir called “The Happiest Man on Earth,” which became a bestseller upon its 2020 release. We are further blessed that playwright Mark St. Germain created a 65-minute solo show from Jaku’s story that’s receiving a deeply involving production from St. Paul’s Six Points Theater.
Performed by local actor JC Cutler — a veteran of more than 50 Guthrie Theater productions, including several years as Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol” — it’s a masterful piece of storytelling that takes audiences inside the horror and heartbreak endured by the protagonist. But it’s also a thrilling adventure story of escape and an inspiring tale of a durable spirit who refuses to abandon his optimism. And it might be the ideal theatrical experience for anyone feeling beaten down by the trauma currently being visited upon Twin Cities streets.
Unlike the Jewish protagonist in Roman Polanski’s film, “The Pianist” — who successfully hides in Warsaw, Poland, throughout the Nazi occupation and ensuing war — Jaku was a man on the move, often walking for days across multiple European countries to flee the murderous purges. As in such Alfred Hitchcock films as “The 39 Steps,” Jaku is an innocent man forced to use his wits to wriggle out of danger, episodes Cutler makes compellingly suspenseful.
One asset Jaku possesses is being an experienced mechanical engineer. It serves to save his life when the Nazis find him of value and also to facilitate his escapes, as when he partially disassembles the train car he’s riding in toward the Auschwitz death camp, resulting in one of the show’s most heart-quickening tales.
Throughout, Cutler and director Ben McGovern collaborate to create an expertly executed example of the art of storytelling, one ably aided by C. Andrew Mayer’s excellent sound design. Cutler so fully inhabits Jaku that you could forget this is a theater production and believe yourself to be having the rare privilege of seeing history through the eyes of a primary source. He employs such impeccable timing, subtlety and disarming openness that this is likely to stand as one of the Twin Cities’ best performances of 2026.
Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.
Six Points Theater’s ‘The Happiest Man on Earth’
When: Through Feb. 8
Where: Highland Park Community Center, 1978 Ford Parkway, St. Paul
Tickets: $35-$15, available at 651-647-4315 or sixpointstheater.org
Capsule: A gripping story of survival and unyielding optimism.
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