Long one of Chicago's educational crown jewels, Northwestern University boasts of many outstanding accomplishments and traditions from its dual campuses in downtown Chicago and Evanston, Illinois to the North. One of Northwestern's more visible contributions to the community is the Theater and Interpretation Center, located at the South end of NU's Evanston campus adjacent to Lake Michigan. The setting alone makes the trip worthwhile, surrounded by idyllic parks brushed with gentle breezes from nearby Lake Michigan. It is here that Artistic Director Henry Godinez presides over a season of theater, music theater and dance. Part of that season includes a series of main stage productions in the Ethel M. Barber Theater and the Josephine Louis Theater. Their final main stage presentation of the 2008–2009 season, Ghetto, by Joshua Sobol and directed by NU faculty member Daniel Cantor, is typical of the high-quality we have come to expect from TIC's program.The play is based on the diary of a librarian who sought asylum in Vilna, Lithuania and includes both fact and fantasy as the playwright explores what Godinez calls the "intersection of humanity and art amidst the direst of circumstances". In this case, these dire circumstances are the holocaust experienced by Europe's Jews during World War II. While it might seem counter-intuitive, this is not a story of right and wrong, evil and righteousness, but rather a story of unending paradoxes and moral dilemmas. That the holocaust itself is an unspeakable evil is taken as given; what remains is to examine the response of those affected and the agonizing decisions that faced them as they struggled to maintain even a tiny fraction of their pride, humanity and self-respect in the face of certain annihilation.
The Jews of the Vilna Ghetto mount a Ghetto Theater. This, in itself, was a controversial topic among the Ghetto Jews, some feeling it dissuaded Jews from physical resistance and dishonored the recently deceased. Ultimately, the Ghetto Theater was quite successful with performances selling out weeks in advance. It is against this backdrop of anomaly that Ghetto tells its tale. As director Daniel Cantor so correctly assesses, "It's here that I begin to find what I consider points of aesthetic vitality for story telling: contradiction, complexity, ambiguity, paradox."
Cantor's direction has brought out the best in the young cast of Ghetto. Especially strong performances are given by Joel Sinensky (Weiskopf, a tailor and businessman), Connor White (Srulik, ventriloquist and theatre director), Erika Rankin (ventriloquist's dummy) and Kevin Fugaro (Kittel, SS Officer/Dr. Paul).
The story unfolds as a series of vignettes depicting the struggles of the Ghetto Jews and the moral and ethical dilemmas they face. Example: given that supplies of insulin will certainly run out prior to their liberation, should they withhold treatment from those most certain to perish anyway, reserving their dwindling supplies for the young and strong who are more likely to survive the entire ordeal? Also perplexing is the dilemma facing Gens, the Chief of Jewish Police and then Ruler of the Ghetto. Is his collaboration with the Nazi's justified when it clearly sacrifices some Jews to save others? And what about Weiskopf, the tailor and businessman? He employs many Jews in his clothing sweatshop, and thus employed, the Nazis pass over them when selecting victims to be sent to concentration camps. But Weiskopf also enriches himself and becomes quite wealthy. He brags about his generous gifts to charitable causes in the Ghetto, but can this justify his overall profiteering from the suffering around him?
In the end, we are left with questions having few, if any, answers. Instead we realize the incredibly difficult decisions that were confronted and resolved, rightly or wrongly, as the Vilna Ghetto population struggled to survive.
Cantor has inspired his large cast to a surprisingly high level of performance. In addition to the main dramatic roles there are a Ghetto Acting Troupe, Musicians of the Acting Troup as well as several other groups of minor characters such as Underground Resistors, Jewish Police and so forth. There is a lot of part doubling requiring actors to change both costume and character as the complicated story unfolds. Add to this the multiple entrances to the performance stage as well as the entrances and exits that use the lobby doors and seating aisles, and one gets the sense that a great deal of thought has gone into the overall design of the production. All this technical artistry is accomplished with professional skill, and we aren't even aware of the amount of coordination and planning that has gone in to the two-and-one-half hour performance.
When the play concludes, what can we take away from the experience? The evening was certainly absorbing, even gripping. Did we reach any conclusions? Perhaps individually there are those who will be willing to make the hard choices faced by the play's characters. Overall, however, we can hardly be expected to respond with more than "It depends," if we were confronted with similar choices. And perhaps that is the real message of the play: Prevention is essential. Mankind must never again face situations that require these kinds of decisions to be made.
TIC's Ghetto is an outstanding evening of theater and highly recommended.
Ghetto by Joshua Sobol directed by Daniel Cantor at the Ethel M. Barber Theater of the Theatre and Interpretation Center at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
May 22—May 31, 2009
Theater and Interpretation Center at Northwestern University
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