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Drama students capture depravity and destiny of Holocaust
A single violin plays hauntingly as figures clad in unnerving animal masks gaze into the distance from the windows. Other individuals with hidden faces then drift around the room, some bearing rifles and others sporting striped prisoner uniforms. Beyond the masks they all wear, they are united in their silence: they watch and walk soundlessly, and an eerie atmosphere pervades.
JORDAN MOSHE
This was the scene which welcomed guests to the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre in Forest Town, Johannesburg, on Tuesday evening.
In heartrending performances, drama students of King David Victory Park High School captured the raw terror of Nazi Germany’s victims, and the mercilessness of its murderers.
The cast of talented young actors presented adaptations of Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel, Maus, and Edith Eger’s The Choice in unique productions they wrote and produced themselves.
“When we talk about the Holocaust, we talk about human beings sinking below the level of animals,” said amateur historian, tour guide, and lawyer, Hugh Raichlin.
“Every person has a choice in every situation. Maus takes us into the depths of depravity, and The Choice tells us that within that depravity, we have a choice, and can change destiny. If a person doesn’t subscribe to a value system greater than their own anger, the behaviour we have experienced as Jews will keep playing out.”
In spite of the darkness Jews have experienced, we have always been the proverbial ‘fiddler on the roof’, Raichlin said. “We still play the violin, we sing and rejoice in spite of the most terrible tribulations. We’re a people that celebrates and symbolises eternal hope for the world.”
The two performances certainly captured all this and more. Performing from a script is demanding enough, but the cast also derived unique and demanding productions from the two hefty texts they chose to work with.
Maus tells the story of American cartoonist Art Spiegelman’s interview of his father, Vladek, about his experience as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. Presenting a chronological narrative, and investing it with tension and emotion while wearing a mask is a tall order, yet the cast did it with aplomb. Whether capturing Spiegelman’s difficulty in reconciling himself with his father’s story, or channelling emotion in Vladek’s reunion with his wife, Anja, the students conveyed Spiegelman’s work acutely and with flair.
Emotional investment and tension were heightened as Eger’s The Choice took to the stage. Eger was a gymnast and ballerina when she was sent to Auschwitz at the age of 16. There, she strove to keep herself alive, dancing for the infamous Josef Mengele, and caring for her sister while keeping her spirit intact.
Her narrative about what courage looks like, and the choice to pay attention to what remains when something is lost, was carried off with talent beyond measure. Tears flowed as an older Eger (played movingly by Erin Midzuk) narrated the life of her younger self, painting a poignant portrait of suffering and loss.
In her final line, Midzuk said, “You can’t change what happened, what you did, or what was done to you, but you can choose to live now. My precious, you can choose to be free.” As the stage faded to black, the extraordinary cast earned a standing ovation, and left an indelible impression upon their emotionally drained audience.