Talking about the Holocaust is not easy.
This is especially true for those who survived it.
Yet James Still’s play “And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank” tells the naked horror of World War II with three powerful stories. The play will be in the Experimental Theater until March 6.
Because of her diary, Anne Frank’s tragic story is the most familiar story. The other two stories are of Ed Silverberg, Anne Frank’s young boyfriend, and Eva Schloss, a friend of Anne Frank’s who spends nine months in Auschwitz and survived along with her mother.
Of the entire Frank family, only Anne Frank’s father, Otto Frank, survived the death camps. He ended up marrying Schloss’ mother after the end of the war.
“And Then They Came for Me” seems to take a metaphorical page from the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Maus” by incorporating as many elements of genres to defy easy categorization in such a monstrous, complex and deeply personal subject matter.
Silverberg and Schloss’ projected faces hover over the action below.
Clips of taped interviews play as actors perform the two’s descriptions of horrific memories of children, taking the parts of their parents, brother and sisters and even themselves.
Often the interview clips discuss the details of hiding from Nazi soldiers in basements with their families, wearing the yellow “Jude” star, or their personal memories of Anne Frank.
The actors will even sometimes talk to their projected selves, with the projections talking back. It gives a weird fatalism to the whole situation.
It almost seems unfair to have actors performing next to the giant floating heads of these dreadfully real people they’re portraying.
Playing real people is never easy.
This is especially true if you’re competing with the somber and honest projection of the person you’re portraying, and especially if that person is also sitting in the front row.
That’s right — the real Schloss is here. Even the haunting remembrances done by her Herculean avatar can’t beat Mrs. Schloss in the flesh, answering questioning and talking to audiences after the shows.
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The actors simply don’t live up to this.
Tom Monahan does a fine job in his small role, but in general the cast stands weakly in their roles, dwindled in power by the frame of the storytelling and the presence of the honest, terrible reality the interviews provide.
Bryan Chapman, playing a Nazi Youth, stood apart from the rest.
Not only was he the only actor not portraying a real person, but he represented the only Nazi in the play as well as the German mentality during World War II.
This is a disturbing harshness to this character — he’s a child, after all, but he also has a terribly humanizing effect. This is not humanizing in a way that justifies the Nazis’ actions, but simply portraying the Germans as people and all its citizens with the distinct fervor possessed by this Hitler Youth.
Chapman has the jovial exuberance and feverous glint behind his eyes as he strikes the infamous salute, screaming “Heil Hitler!” The part demands a creepy and disturbing nature that Chapman has in spades.
The Hitler Youth tells a story near the end of the play, the only time his nationalist passion wavers. He tells about a puppy he was given and told to raise as his own.
After six months, his superiors order him to strangle the puppy to death to prove his resolve to Germany and the cause.
This seems odd.
In 1936-40 the Hitler Youth saw its numbers rise from 5 million to 8 million and Hitler was known as an avid dog lover, particularly of his famous German Shepherd Blondi.
Perhaps this was not a nationally institutionalized practice, as it would mean German children murdered more puppies than people perished in the Holocaust, but I could find no information that confirmed or denied this ritual.
In truth, the anecdote seemed to stick out in a production that bordered heavily on a documentary or educational special on the History Channel.
But with people in the audience actually asking Mrs. Schloss about Holocaust deniers, there is clearly a need for such a play to exist. Her presence alone makes this production a marvel and worth the time to hear a wise teacher and humanitarian speak.
