Our Class – 15 September 2024

When I think about the violence and eradication of the world wars, I tend to think about profoundly disturbing acts in which the perpetrators saw themselves as a link in a complex chain or web, and did not struggle with the violence because they were not personally accountable – they were just a soldier following orders, if they didn’t do it, somebody would— kind of thing. The violence displayed in Our Class was intensely traumatic to watch because it was perpetrated between people who knew each other intimately with real, face-to-face connections, who seldom looked at one another, and said, “no more.“ It was a level of anger and hatred I didn’t think possible – that people could intentionally, and personally murder their friends as part of a movement with which they barely identified. The stylized violence in the piece was difficult to watch even in abstract, artistic moments, no less so, because I was shaken by an afterthought, “ How much worse was it to endure the real event? I am fragile enough to be disturbed by popping balloons!”

Of the most poignant moments of the show for me, was the end of the first act, in which the newly baptized Marianna (Alexandra Silbor) was receiving wedding silver from the Polish classmates who were so alive, while the dead Jewish ones watched from above, identifying the pieces that had formery been theirs and were now throwaways to be gifted by their Polish classmates. Marianna’s terror as the rhythm and pace intensified was palpable, as her own identity was shifting to turn her into someone who she wouldn’t have recognized. Though she could not be loyal to her heritage, towards the end of the second act she made a choice to be loyal to her individual connection with the Polish classmate, Vladik (Ilia Volok) who had saved her life. This felt intensely significant in the context of a show rife with backstabbing and revenge and turning on each other and knowingly abandoning personal connections to those they once called “classmate”. 

The barn burning scene was particularly effective, especially because the playwright found an open way to acknowledge that many of the victims perished by suffocation. Dora (Gus Birney)’s haunting presence facilitated the crossings beyond the veil of many of her former classmates. The show took a dark, but meaningful turn when revenge began to reveal that there were bad people on both sides. Minam (Andrey Burkovskiy) committed terrifying acts in the name of avenging his fellow Jewish classmates and his beloved wife. His acts were monstrous, but worsened by his vitriol. It was an interesting magnification of how much hurt people can hurt people.

Sitting through the show is challenging because these are not peoples’ life stories. These are their death stories. Some of the classmates who didn’t die first had actually died inside many years prior to those who did. Surviving was not a triumph, but an incredibly horrific burden. Watching Our Class, I did not pity the dead with the same emphatic verve I reserved for those who were forced to survive and endure. This epitome of the human condition evokes unanswerable existential questions: Why does the human body struggle so hard to remain living? What is it in the human soul and psyche that persevere? What awaits us on the other side? Does what we survive in this life shape whatever happens next? What is it all for?

I attended this production on a press pass from Keith Sherman & Associates.