Our Class is not an easy play to watch. Based on horrific events in a rural Polish village during World War II, it’s the story of lost innocence amid stunning acts of moral depravity. Mixing fact and fiction, the play follows the lives of ten classmates and good friends from childhood to old age. They’re all transformed one way or another by the political instability in the buildup to the war. Five of them are Catholic. The other five, Jewish. Religion matters none to them as children but as they grow up under Soviet and Nazi occupation, antisemitism rears its ugly head. Despite their professed loyalty as classmates, mutual affection soon turns to hate.
Written by Polish playwright Tadeusz Slobodzianek with an adaptation by Norman Allen, the work is deeply disturbing. It’s not just the acts of violence that are so unsettling, it’s the realization that seemingly good people are capable of such cruelty to one another. Even the guiltless ones do little to inspire hope. There are no heroes in this play. Only victims, antagonists, and survivors.
Alliances form as the two sides start to split. The Christian Poles team with the Nazis and hostilities come to a head in 1941 when all of the town’s Jews – 1600 of them – are rounded up and locked into a barn which is set ablaze. They all perish. For many years it was believed that the atrocity was committed by the Nazis but the play tells us it was actually the work of the townsfolk and – as portrayed – without conscience or remorse.
That climactic moment comes halfway through the production. But even before that, there are other instances of murder, betrayal, and rape. Some of the characters manage to escape the worst of it but they are scarred for life. The classmate who seems the most fortunate, Abram (Richard Topol), leaves for America before the war breaks out. He’s the one character with a strong moral center, though the play begs the question: what did Americans do for Jews in the war?
The ensemble is exceptionally strong and so clearly invested in their roles, it is painful watching the steady drumbeat of abuse their characters endure. I have to single out Alexandra Silber who has the most interesting storyline. She is excellent as Rachelka, a Jewish woman who is saved when doltish Wladek (Ilia Volok) offers to marry her if she renounces her faith and converts to Catholicism. She changes her name to Marianna and spends the rest of her life in an unhappy marriage. Her willful blindness burying the truth is a major theme of the play. At one point some of her schoolmates who conspired to commit the barn fire murders offer to help with her Catholic lessons by reminding her that the sixth commandment is “Thou shalt not kill.” The hypocrisy is deafening.
Led by Ukrainian born director Igor Golyak, there is an international presence in the production. Some of the cast members and creative team are foreign born with ties to Poland and that gives the work an authentic resonance.
The physical production is both stylized and minimalist. The biggest stage piece is a giant blackboard on which the cast members continually jot names and crude chalk drawings. Superimposed on the entire surface are some cool animated projections. Golyak apparently likes technology, evidenced by the frequent use of video in the scenes when Abram speaks to his classmates from America. It’s essentially a video selfie the actor shoots himself as we see him walking backstage and around the theater. It’s a weird anachronistic touch for a story that takes place so many decades ago.
I also have to question the entire conceptual design of this work which can sometimes seem random and haphazard. The chalk drawings are often too faint to make out clearly and we’re left guessing what we can’t see. It’s visually clever but also confusing. This may be the intention but it ultimately breaks the play’s intensifying spell. And at 3 hours including an intermission, it needs some trimming. The entire second act feels like an extended denouement.
Despite any reservations, this is an important work…too important to look away. In a sense, Our Class represents the flip side of “it takes a village.” Community members motivated to do good for each other can so easily be swayed to turn against one another. It’s happening before our eyes in Ukraine, Israel and Gaza. And yes, even at home. When nearly half the respondents polled in a recent survey agree with Trump’s statement that immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country, there is little doubt about the effects of moral corruption on our body politic. As easy as it was to light a match that killed friends and neighbors, all it takes is a conspiracy theory, a dog whistle, repeated lies to ignite our basest impulses.
Our Class opened January 18, 2023, at the BAM Fisher Theater and runs through February 11. Tickets and information: bam.org
