This 3-hour production by Remy Bumppo was beautifully staged - the set was simple but completely effective. To me it embodied, the goal of Chicago theatre - transport me to a whole new world with something as simple as a room with wooden chairs & the power of the actors speaking the words. Projected images enhanced, rather than distracted, the various locales depicted. The people filling this world were complete - conflicted, scared, outraged, weak, innocent until completely changed - and the actors filled those experiences with honesty & depth.
Like any historical fact-based piece about the atrocities that human beings can inflict upon one another, there is a lot going on both on stage and within me. I have a very hard time witnessing this particular 'truth' about humanity - fear of the different, the unknown, leads to a violent lashing out so as to protect what is known, familiar and understood. The fear that if you have success and freedom and rights, this will somehow lessen my ability to have the same.
How do you respond to such anger & fear & hate without sinking to the desire and action of revenge? And how do you stop the cycle & bring about peace when revenge feels like the only answer?
Because, of course, it's not just "history". The cycle hasn't ended yet. As my friend pointed out last night, this show about a Polish town rounding up 1600 Jews to burn them alive in a church was opening on the 20th anniversary of the Rwanda Genocide.
The Oscar-winning film "Life is Beautiful" had an amazing ability to show those atrocities along side an individual's defiance of the need for revenge and left me with a sense of hope - I'm not sure that the goal of Our Class was similar, but personally, I would have preferred some hope to take home with me.