Review by Markus Hamence – The Pink List – Performance date: Wednesday 25 February 2026. Holden Street Theatres, Hindmarsh, South Australia
Set in 1957 Germany, The Pink List follows a gay concentration-camp survivor navigating a post-war world that still refuses to offer freedom or dignity. What unfolds is not simply history – it is memory, trauma, resilience and the painful persistence of injustice long after the war has ended.
This is theatre that sits in the chest.
Performed (at Holden Street Theatre) with restraint and emotional clarity by the writer and performer, Michael Trauffer, the production avoids melodrama, instead allowing silence, gesture and lived truth to carry the weight. The storytelling feels stark and personal, as though the audience is entrusted with testimony rather than watching a play.
“The writing is deliberate and humane. It explores survival, identity, shame and the cruel irony of liberation without acceptance…”
Markus Hamence
The writing is deliberate and humane. It explores survival, identity, shame and the cruel irony of liberation without acceptance. The historical reality – that persecution continued for many gay men after WWII – lands with sobering force, giving the narrative both urgency and contemporary resonance.
Visually, the staging is minimal, which works in the show’s favour. The sparseness amplifies the emotional landscape: a chair becomes confinement, a shadow becomes memory, and absence becomes grief. Lighting and sound design subtly shape the mood without overpowering the performance.
The finale when Trauffer breaks from character and speaks in his own words could be the most powerful (and tear inducing) part of the play as he speaks of ‘the list’ and how we must never repeat history (as dangerously close we come at times).
What lingers is the show and the artist’s compassion. Rather than centring victimhood, it honours endurance – the quiet, daily courage required simply to exist in a world determined to erase you.
“The Pink List is not easy viewing – but it is essential…”
Markus Hamence
This Piece Of Theatre Matters
The Pink List reminds us that history does not stay in the past. Its themes echo into today’s conversations around identity, human rights, and the cost of silence. It is sobering, important theatre – the kind Adelaide Fringe does best.
Wrap Up
Quietly devastating, historically vitaland deeply human, The Pink List is not easy viewing – but it is essential. If only the ‘right’ people could see this.
A moving piece of testimony theatre that honours truth, memory and the right to exist.
The Pink List
Fri, 20 Feb – Sun, 08 March 2026
Ruby’s at HST at Holden Street Theatres
Tickets
Follow Michael Trauffer on Facebook
