'Our Class' review — a union dividing and surviving
Read our review of Our Class off Broadway, a historical drama by Tadeusz Słobodzianek playing at Classic Stage Company after a run at Brooklyn Academy of Music.
In Our Class, now running at Classic Stage Company after last season’s stop at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Polish playwright Tadeusz Słobodzianek offers a rare piece of survivor’s art not ridden with survivor’s guilt. The exploration of how hatred and division takes hold of Słobodzianek’s childhood classmates offers equal consideration to each one’s motives, but it does not hold back when it comes to violence, guilt, and responsibility.
Though a 2018 legal amendment outlawed acknowledgment of the Polish people’s complicity or participation in the Holocaust, Słobodzianek presents a clear narrative of how forces both domestic and foreign stoked hate among his neighbors. At the same time, Our Class does 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.
Perhaps Słobodzianek’s play projects a childlike romanticization of his much-beloved classmates, who sacrifice their innocence all too readily as young adults. Or perhaps in his idealism, Słobodzianek knows his old friends, free from the pulls of prejudice, will only welcome him into their embrace again in a world to come.
Our Class summary
Słobodzianek’s play follows a group of classmates from their schooldays to old age as they watch their hometown of Jedwabne and all of Poland transform throughout the 20th century. Their lives begin in an integrated community of Jews and ethnic Poles, with Jewish classmate Dora (Gus Birney) and Polish Catholic classmate Rysiek (José Espinosa) confessing crushes on each other and staging a mock playground wedding.
While classmate Abram (Richard Topol) moves to America and sends letters reporting relative stability in New York, those back home find their lives in chaos. The Soviet occupation turns friends against each other, while the subsequent Nazi occupation encourages Polish nationalist violence. Though some classmates risk their lives to help one another, others betray their earliest bonds.
What to expect at Our Class
Our Class runs two hours and 50 minutes, including one intermission. The play explicitly discusses themes of the Holocaust as well as Polish nationalism and the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Poland. Our Class features sequences of simulated violence and sexual assault, and multiple scenes discuss violence in graphic terms. There is also one sequence with smoke.
What audiences are saying about Our Class
Our Class has an audience approval rating of 87% on the review aggregator Show-Score.
- Show-Score user Alex 4260 commended the show’s “smart artistic use of multimedia”
- Users of both Show-Score and the app Mezzanine have left positive reviews of Classic Stage Company’s production of Our Class as well as last season’s production at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Read more audience reviews of Our Class on Show-Score.
Who should see Our Class
- If you enjoyed last season’s Here There Are Blueberries, a similarly ensemble-driven exploration of the Holocaust and its effects, you’ll likely be interested in Our Class.
- If you recall Gus Birney’s entrancing performance in The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, you’ll appreciate seeing her as the beguiling Dora.
- If you love inventive projection design, you will not want to miss the work of designers Eric Dunlap and Igor Golyak (who also directs) and chalk drawing designer Andreea Mincic.
Learn more about Our Class off Broadway
Golyak’s production immerses audiences in a dreamlike world of both naivety and solemnity, alternating between wonder and horror. Our Class is the kind of production that offers a path to our current moment without being bogged down by lecture.
Photo credit: Our Class off Broadway. (Photos by Jeremy Daniel)
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