Ghetto
Seattle Public Theater at the Bathhouse Theater, 7312 W Green Lake Dr N, 325-6500. Thurs-Sat at 8, Sun at 2; $10-$19. Through Nov 12.
WHEN THE LEAD character in Ghetto declares, “There are many forms of resistance,” he’s putting forth only one of several strong premises featured in this provocative, sometimes didactic play. Ghetto brought storms of protest when it was first produced in Haifa, Israel in 1988. Another of Israeli playwright Joshua Sobol’s plays, a musical called The Jerusalem Question, got him fired from his job as artistic director at Haifa’s Municipal Theatre. These clashes over artistic content touched nerves beyond so-called decency issues (e.g., the revulsion certain U.S. senators expressed over Robert Mapplethorpe’s photos and the NEA Four).
Jews are extremely divided about what’s considered appropriate to express regarding our history, most notably the history involving the Holocaust. For example, some people here and abroad refused to see Hollywood’s Schindler’s List, and the reasoning goes roughly along these lines: This part of our history is so devastating that it’s unspeakable, and being unspeakable, it shouldn’t be broadcast, produced theatrically, or used for the purpose of making money, for each of those things is disrespectful to the dead and to history. Other Jews applauded Steven Spielberg and his attempt to record history and establish a filmic memorial. (Of course, Spielberg is a moviemaker with all the aesthetic subtlety of Baby Huey, but that’s another issue.)
But back to the issue of resistance. Ghetto imagines the lives of a group of Lithuanian Jews in the Vilna ghetto, from which thousands were deported to the Posnar concentration camp in the early 1940s. Extant diaries and other historical records show that a theater company thrived in Vilna from 1941-1943. While some Jewish prisoners abhorred the idea of lively performance amid hunger, routine cruelty, and death, others saw it as a form of resistance–a way of retaining humanity in the face of horror, of turning inside oneself to creativity, and thus solace.
Sobol gives voice to this issue in the play, as well as other topics that are taboo in some circles: the notion that Jews are innately passive and accepted the Nazi regime as part of their capacity for suffering; whether or not this suffering has made Jews strong; and the fact that capos and other Jews assigned by the Nazis to supervise became much like Nazis themselves under these circumstances. The play’s lead character, the Jewish ghetto leader Gens (David S. Klein), stands in this morally ambiguous position, deciding which ghetto dwellers will live and which will die. Another character is a step more extreme: Weiskopf (Gene Freeman), who makes money mending Nazi uniforms within the ghetto, is decidedly unpleasant, greedy, and weak. But it’s to Sobol’s credit that his characters aren’t all sweet and martyrish victims.
The ghetto theater company survives partly because of the sadistic patronage of the saxophone-playing chief Nazi officer Kittel (Bob De Dea). Though De Dea’s sinister laugh and other evil traits initially border on stock, by the end of the play the character deepens and grows more complex. The same can’t be said for most of the cast, though; lots of expressions of horror, confusion, and suffering read as exaggeration. Maybe actors’ imaginations resist taking on this caliber of suffering. However, with the exception of De Dea and Julie Olsen as a chanteuse, those in supporting roles (especially Susanna Wilson and David Goldstein) created brighter, more distinct characters than the leads.
While Sobol’s characters discuss what type of resistance to oppressors is best, or how the ghetto creates twisted financial opportunities for businessmen, or how power is seized upon and abused by victims, the play’s themes start to dovetail and echo the boggling proportions of the Holocaust itself. Though this production isn’t for the easily depressed, it’s worthwhile, especially to watch how playwright Sobol constructs intertwining swathes of drama around these disturbing ideas, the blossoming of the Vilna theater company, and the Nazi’s destruction of the ghetto.
Director Lauren Marshall rounds out this production with a small Klezmer-style band led by wonderfully restrained accordionist Laurie Andres, who captures beautifully the melancholy phrases composed in the European ghettos. This production is the first at Seattle Public Theater’s new Green Lake digs, where the company will continue to produce overtly political works (a difficult thing to do in this country).