Nazi Camp Persists in Charade of Decency
A perversely theatrical chapter of the Holocaust is hauntingly re-enacted in Juan Mayorga’s play “Way to Heaven,” about the sham Jewish settlement at Theresienstadt, or Terezin, in what is now the Czech Republic, set up by the Nazis to persuade observers that Jews were held in humane conditions. A make-believe utopia, Theresienstadt (the German name) was an effective propaganda tool. In reality, it was a concentration camp, and a way station leading to Auschwitz and other death camps.
Mr. Mayorga, a prominent Spanish playwright (the translation is by David Johnston), has divided “Way to Heaven” into five sections. The first is a monologue by a Red Cross visitor (Shawn Parr, vividly penitent), recalling a trip years before to the camp. He ruefully describes his doubts about the synthetic contentment of the residents, as well his failure to act on his suspicions.
The second part consists of fabricated tableaus performed for the visitor: a couple (Trae Hicks and Jennifer Vega) bicker; two young men (Sergio LoDolce and Sal Bardo) discuss the sister of one; a girl (the remarkable 10-year-old Samantha Rahn) teaches her doll to swim. The language is elementary, the situations mundane, contrived “Stepford Wives” visions of everyday German domesticity. A distant calliope, meant to suggest gaiety, instead conjures a deranged carnival. Who could compose these mind-numbing lines that summon Hannah Arendt’s phrase “the banality of evil”?
In the next scene we find out. Enter the Commandant (Francisco Reyes, exuding smarmy bonhomie and simmering aggression), who receives the visitor. With his tall stature, imposing chin and brisk bearing, the Commandant trumpets his worldliness, his library and his fondness for Spinoza. He explains how the camp is “an experiment in self-determination,” and how inclusive the future will be: “Very soon we will all be speaking the same language,” he says. “The world is moving toward unity.”
The Commandant, it turns out, fancies himself a director and dramatist, and he has coerced a prisoner, Gershom Gottfried (Mark Farr), guardedly stifling his outrage, to help compose and stage the ghastly charade. In their unsettling exchanges, the Commandant’s patronizing demeanor begins to crack: he giddily does a jig, and his manic temper flashes as he berates Gottfried for not coaxing better performances from his “actors.”
In the show’s final segment Gottfried urges his terrified players to “focus on their words and gestures” and ignore the daily train traffic in human cargo. “If we do it well,” he tells the girl, against all hope, “we’ll see Mummy again, on one of those trains.”
This spare, eloquent work — staged by Equilicuá Producciones, a group based in New York and Spain — has been, not surprisingly, a hit in Europe and South America. Here, leanly directed by Matthew Earnest, it’s a powerful illustration of how theatrical artifice can be pressed into the service of atrocity.
“Way to Heaven” runs through May 24 at Teatro Circulo, 64 East Fourth Street, East Village; (212) 868-4444, smarttix.com.
http://theater.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/theater/reviews/20heav.html?pagewanted=print
Related Archives:
Zionists Used Biological Terrorism in 1947-1948
The Likud Party and the Birth of Hamas
51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis by Lenni Brenner
Zionism in the Age of the Dictators by Lenni Brenner
SS-Haganah Negotiations of 1936-1937
The Stern Gang: Ideology, Politics, and Terror 1940-1949
Waffen SS Otto von Bolschwing and the Creation of Israel
A History of Zionist Eugenic Policies in Israel
The New York Times and Zionist Eugenics (Part Two)
The New York Times and Zionist Eugenics (Part Three)
Comments