✭✭✭✭✩

by Tadeusz Słobodzianek, translated by Ryan Craig, directed by Joel Greenberg

Studio 180 with Canadian Stage, Berkeley Street Theatre Downstairs, Toronto

April 7-30, 2011

What if Thornton Wilder’s cozy play Our Town were set in 20th-century Poland instead?  The result would likely resemble Tadeusz Słobodzianek’s tremendously powerful Our Class, now receiving its North American premiere from Studio 180 in association with Canadian Stage.  Whereas Wilder’s Grover’s Corners harbours a homogenous population in terms of race, religion and politics, Słobodzianek’s village, modelled after the historical Jedwabne, is riven by divisions.  Whereas Grover’s Corners is insulated from outside events, Jedwabne is subject to Polish nationalists, the Soviets, the Nazis and the swings of post-war politics.

Our Class follows a group of ten students from 1926 to 2000.  As youngsters the six Catholic and four Jewish children play, dance, sing and learn together.  Once Polish nationalism begins to rise, the children are taught to think of “Polish” and “Jewish” as incompatible terms.  When his father is taken away by the Soviets, Zygmunt (Jonathan Goad) tries to protect himself by becoming their informer and betraying former classmates as anti-Soviet.  When the Nazis come to power he does the same by betraying those who are Jewish.  Betrayal climaxes in the 1941 Jedwabne pogrom when townsfolk like Zygmunt and his friends herd at least 340 Jewish inhabitants into a barn and burn it to the ground.  When the war is over, men like Menachem (Alex Poch-Goldin) seek revenge for those deaths and go to their own extremes.  Step by step Słobodzianek shows how most of the ten classmates betray each other or their own ideals.  In this way the specific events of the town gain universality.

Our Class is an ensemble piece, but the cast is uneven and certain performances shine more brightly than others.  Michael Rubenfeld attains gravitas as Abram, who emigrates to America before divisions become deep and thus preserves an image of his friends still united and innocent.  Amy Rutherford is heart-rending as Dora, who tries to comprehend why former classmates would rape her and burn her alive.  Ryan Hollyman and Poch-Goldin are equally gripping as complex characters--one Catholic, one Jewish--whose anger brings about their own destruction.  Through these ten intricately intertwined lives, Słobodzianek creates a portrait of human frailty and brutality in the 20th-century that makes for uncomfortable but necessary viewing.         

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2011-04-08.

Photo: Ryan Hollyman, David Beazely (front row); Michael Rubenfeld, Jessica Greenberg, Alex Poch-Goldin (second row); Jonathan Goad, Dylan Roberts, Kimwun Perehinec, Amy Rutherford, Mark McGrinder (back row). ©John Karastamatis.