The Investigation
Nov. 6th, 2007 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skull_bearerWent to see the Investigation this evening, a fantastic play about the Auschwitz trials in the 60s. It was absolutely brilliant, not least becasue it was a Rwandese theater company proforming it, so they had their own experience to draw on. Plus, it was rather strange to see people I'd read about played on stange. I ended up having a to stuff a fist in my mouth after seeing SS Stark (who was a tall, imposing aryan guy according to an account I'd read) being played by a tiny black dude in glasses. Giggling would have been pretty unsuitable. Rather strangely, it was all in French, which posed no problem for me and they had screens showing subtitles. There was one particularly wierd bit when the whole cast lapsed into african for a full 5-10 minutes and the whole audience was just looking at each other in bewilderment becuase there were no subtitles. Thney then stopped and did the whole thing again in French with subtitles. It was rather funny.
It was incredibly real, again, probably because the actors knew the emotions all to well. It really was like being in a real trial, and I kept on feeling like cheering or booing at odd times. Mostly while the witnesses were being cross-examined, because that's the time you want to bash someone's head through a brick wall, preferably the cross-examiner's. And that was how it really was, imagine trying to cross-examine a survivor, trying to put what they'd survived and done to surivive in a civilised setting. It was agonising. I hadn't known some agencies had tried to pay off the witnesses, or, failing that, threaten them into silence.
ike many things I've read about the Holocaust, the whole thing made me want to either laugh or scream. I managed to avoid either, but wow. It really was wonderful. The ending was particularly powerful. A speech about how the Holocaust was not something seperate from reality (take that Charles) but tied into the fabric of our society and that anyone could have been either perprtrator or victim. The cast playing the judges, jury and defendants left in disgust, leaving those playing the suriviors alone on stage. In silence, they stood very still, from many long moments. Then, slowly, they filed out as the lights dimmed. Incredible. I clapped until my hands were numb.
I may have to see it again.
It was incredibly real, again, probably because the actors knew the emotions all to well. It really was like being in a real trial, and I kept on feeling like cheering or booing at odd times. Mostly while the witnesses were being cross-examined, because that's the time you want to bash someone's head through a brick wall, preferably the cross-examiner's. And that was how it really was, imagine trying to cross-examine a survivor, trying to put what they'd survived and done to surivive in a civilised setting. It was agonising. I hadn't known some agencies had tried to pay off the witnesses, or, failing that, threaten them into silence.
ike many things I've read about the Holocaust, the whole thing made me want to either laugh or scream. I managed to avoid either, but wow. It really was wonderful. The ending was particularly powerful. A speech about how the Holocaust was not something seperate from reality (take that Charles) but tied into the fabric of our society and that anyone could have been either perprtrator or victim. The cast playing the judges, jury and defendants left in disgust, leaving those playing the suriviors alone on stage. In silence, they stood very still, from many long moments. Then, slowly, they filed out as the lights dimmed. Incredible. I clapped until my hands were numb.
I may have to see it again.