Arlekin Players’ Unpacks History and Violence, Lesson by Lesson, in the Compelling “Our Class” – front mezz junkies, Theater News

The Off-Broadway Theatre Review: Arlekin Players Theatre’s Our Class at Classic Stage Company

By Ross

The schooling begins with some singing, with the cast of Our Class seated in a row on a pretty dark barren set. There is unity and comradery in those first few scenes, of classmates loving and caring for one another, even with small hints of jealousy and naivety hanging in the air. It’s a sharply defined beginning, and paired within our program, there’s a study guide by Dr. Rachel Moss titled; “History Lesson. Timeline of World Events to Contextualize Our Class“, which, as the ideas start pouring out, lesson by lesson, we can’t help but be pulled in by the creative framing that elevates this dynamic three-hour play brought before us by the inventive Arlekin Players Theatre at Classic Stage Company.

The piece comes to this downtown stage at a time when the world is facing an increase in antisemitism across the globe. Hate, in general, is on the rise across the globe, and America, making the reemergence of Our Class, a featured production of the 2024 Under the Radar Festival that received multiple award nominations: a Drama League Award Nomination for Outstanding Revival of a Play; an Outer Critics Circle Award Nomination for Outstanding Featured Performer in an Off-Broadway Play (Gus Birney); and a Drama Desk Award Nomination for Outstanding Projection and Video Design (Eric Dunlap), even more important than ever. This restaging electrifies the space, in chalk-line simplicity, unpacking a horrific moment in Poland’s history with the dated notations in the study guide focusing its sharp eye on July 10, 1941, “In Jedwabne, Poland, [when] the members of the Jewish community were rounded up into a barn by their Polish neighbors, which the Poles subsequently set on fire, killing everyone inside.”

We read and reread that highlighted box in disbelief, minutes before this intense exploration of hate and division starts their numerically vocalized lessons of the moments that led to that date, and the post-traumatic years that come after. Written with a determined stance by Polish playwright Tadeusz Słobodzianek (Historia o żebraku i osiołku –The Story of the Beggar and the Donkey, written in 1977), adapted by Norman Allen, and creatively directed by Igor Golyak (Zero-G’s chekhovOS), Our Class begins with a gaggle of classmates teasing and engaging with each other over infatuation and attraction, with little regard to their differences in religion and status in that row of chairs. As the dates and history start progressing forward into the mid-1930s and beyond, a monumental line is symbolically drawn, first in chalk and projections, across the floor and on the back wall, and then in action and violence, on a blackboard stage designed fascinatingly by Jan Pappelbaum of the Schaubuehne, with effective chalk drawings design by Adreea Mincic, matched with powerful projections and video designed by Eric Dunlap and director Golyak.

Our Class dutifully follows the progression of ten Polish classmates; five Jewish and five Catholic, growing up as congenial playmates, loyal friends, and caring neighbors, who then, for a myriad of reasons both internal and external, turn on one another with life and death consequences. The cast of Our Class is exceptionally well tuned in with each other, flinging themselves fearlessly across the square blackboard space with abandonment and faith, like children in a deeply real playground of war, hatred, power dynamics, and love. Featuring Gus Birney (The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window) as Dora (1920-1941), Andrey Burkovskiy (Call DiCaprio!) as Menachem (1919-1975), José Espinosa (Take Me Out) as Rysiek (1919-1942), Tess Goldwyn (New Amsterdam) as Zocha (1919-1985), Will Manning (As Reaper in the Summer Gain) as Heniek (1919-2001), Stephen Ochsner (Chicks) as Jakub Katz (1919-1941), Alexandra Silber (Fiddler on the Roof) as Rachelka, and later Marianna (1920-2002), Richard Topol (Indecent; The Normal Heart) as Abram (1920-2003), Ilia Volok (Gemini Man, The Gaaga) as Władek (1919-2001), and Elan Zafir (Hedda Gabler) as Zygmunt (1918-1977), Our Class unwraps, lesson by lesson, a narrative of how forces inside and out of Poland used propaganda and fear to create an atmosphere of hate and violence between neighbors. And how each and every one of these classmates reacts to the changing of ties and times.

It’s a captivating real-life tale, that attempts to not pass judgment “about how its characters — victims, survivors, perpetrators, witnesses — cope with their memories and guilt as they age. Some leave home, some become hardened Nazi hunters, and some, like Alexandra Silber’s Rachelka, bury themselves in new identities rather than face past traumas,” unpacked from a 2018 legal amendment outlawed acknowledgment of the Polish people’s complicity or participation in the Holocaust. It follows this group, step by step, year by year, lesson by lesson, as they move through life, forged in heartbreak, violence, and tragedy to their own personal understanding and ending.

It starts out with crushes and a mock wedding between two sweet characters who eventually find themselves standing on different sides, with fear and violence separating something that could have been very different. When Abram, played lovingly by Richard Topol, moves to America to study, he continues to send letters full of care and optimism to those who he left back home, but the receivers find themselves living in a country overwhelmed with chaos, with choices made not easily transcribed back to their friend, Abram. The Soviet occupation and the subsequent Nazi occupation fuel distrust, hate, and violence, in all the ways history has reported it. But in Our Class, we are given something more carefully and uniquely constructed to emphasize how classmates who were once caretakers of each other could so easily be turned and encouraged toward a path filled with intolerance, hatred, and extreme violence. Some classmates don’t fall victim to this propaganda, risking their lives to help one another through those dangerous times, but others find power and control far too intoxicating, and betray their friends and neighbors ferociously and ever-so quickly.

A stealth guitar plays hypnotically in the corner, adding emotional currency to the air, as determined and forceful images and formulations of violence, death, and murder are presented with chalk in hand and balloons at foot. It’s powerful and accurate, understanding what’s at stake and knowing how to present it forcibly on stage. At a running time of almost three hours, Our Class is determined to follow this through to the final days of every one of these classmates, whether it’s dignified, disturbing, or disheartening. Through its creative energy, the piece finds emotional clarity in the simplest of constructions, guided along by the solid simple work of сostume designer Sasha Ageeva, lighting designer Adam Silverman, and choreography by Or Schraiber with compelling music by Oscar winner Anna Drubich (Navalny) and music direction by Lisa Gutkin. It finds connection and disconnection from within, parceling out captivating constructs and agonizing a bit too much over minutia. The chaos that is inherent to the story sometimes overwhelms the piece, making it impossible to follow or comprehend the words that are flung out like children on a playground. But the weight in Arlekin Players‘ Our Class is true, and the story, bold, even when the construction lingers and gets a bit lost in the overwhelming final details as it shuffles like an old man moving through his memories and generations to his ending.

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