Our Class at CSC

[chrishuyen]

Posted: 9/14/24 at 11:21pm

I was a little surprised to see that there wasn't a thread about this show already (considering the BAM production was apparently sold out), as I think it's an interesting one to talk about.

I saw this on Thursday and didn't really remember what it was about when I walked in (other than having a vague recollection that it had to do with the Holocaust), so it took me a while to realize it was set in Poland (and I also hadn't really had much prior knowledge of the conflicts Poland had had with Russia at the time).  I think the story itself is really quite interesting (if harrowing), and especially the close study of the motivations and choices of different characters throughout their lifetimes can be quite fascinating, especially the character played by Alexandra Silber (though all the actors are quite fantastic).

It did take me a little while to settle into the show since it starts out seeming like it's a reading (for what purpose I didn't really understand), but I thought the use of the chalkboards and other props were quite inventive and fun (even if they became a bit twee later on).  The character introductions go by pretty quickly and I felt like I was always a half step behind at first, and they really speed through quite a bit of the plot in the first hour so sometimes I didn't quite understand a motivation or even what had just happened, but it did eventually end up making sense.  

But I thought what the play did well was really demonstrate the different viewpoints of the 10 different characters.  After the first hour or so where I was struggling to piece everything together, I thought the play did a good job of balancing the different storylines of the characters (even as some move away from the town where most of the action is set), and they really did all feel like real humans.  There are clear villains in the show but even those characters are treated with a level of empathy that allows you to understand how their world views may lead them to do what they do (though there were some moments I think that could've been expanded on). 

There are a lot of horrifying events that happen in the play, but I was pretty glad that I ended up watching it (despite the almost 3 hour run time) and I'm curious to hear from others that might've seen it!  (The same cast and director is doing Merchant of Venice later on in the year and I'll admit I didn't really have any interest in that before, but now I think I'll give it a go.)

[PipingHotPiccolo]

Posted: 9/29/24 at 12:32am

i did something tonight i literally cant remember doing before- i left. 

this was so poorly written! the subject matter is right up my alley (both in terms of my educational background, and my grandfather's time being hidden in a barn in a Polish village in the 1940s). walking to the theater I passed people mourning Hezbollah terrorists, and we currently have a presidential ticket mired in the ugliest blame-the-immigrants  rhetoric we have seen in a while. with fascism and its apologists everywhere, more topical this play could not be.

but do they even say where the play is set? is there some explanation later why they give off this "we barely know our lines" shtick from the jump, with the songs no one can understand and the script binders? did i miss any insight into why some are doing California sk8er boy accents, some antebellum Southern twangs, and some thick Polish/Russian I struggled to understand? 

There are lines like "I am moving to America to see my grandfather Moshe. And my grandmother Leah. And my other grandfather Isaac. And my other grandmother Sarah" that feels like this was written to an audience who never heard of Jews before? Or "and then we all drank, and read out loud from Father's anti-Semitic book"- as if thats how polish thugs would ever characterize what they were reading ? 

And in between all these bizarre line readings came the most vicious descriptions of the most harrowing violence in sing-song narration, and a truly repulsive rape scene that the rapists narrated as they committed it like it was porn. Most egregious, the play wasnt explaining why these guys all loved each other as "classmates" even as they simultaneously were quite literally murdering the jews in their class.

A fire alarm went off about 85 minutes in, which I think was part of the show? It was so well timed, and the stagehands were so calm ushering out the audience that we were sure this was part of it, somehow, even though they were saying "live theater folks" as we shuffled out, to find the cast, in costume, hanging out on the sidewalk. we were so bewildered, and so unexcited by the notion of another 90 minutes of this, that we just took the opportunity to leave. 

i feel horrible because i think this is the kinda show more people need to see. And because Richard Topol is so warm and watchable always. (Alexandra Silber was out, her understudy was fine but i assume that role gets more to do in the second act i missed). But my god was this rough. the tiny theater was no more than half full (the back two rows of both sides were dead empty), Glad they sold out in Bklyn, shocked they moved to CSC. 

Updated On: 9/29/24 at 12:32 AM

[Theater3232]

Posted: 9/29/24 at 12:57am

Seemed more like an academic exercise than a poignant theater piece to me. I'm usually horrified at Holocaust shows, but here I felt absolutely nothing. The extreme 3 hour length significantly hurt it. Needed at least an hour of cuts.