Our Class

Thursday, February 16, 2012, 8 – 10pm
Balch Arena Theater

New England Premiere directed by Barbara W. Grossman

An award-winning play first staged in London in 2009, Our Class confronts the horrors of the Holocaust through the lives of ten school friends, five Jewish and five Catholic, in an unnamed Polish town. It is meant to represent Jedwabne, where hundreds of Jews were massacred – some sources say by the occupying Nazis, others allege by their Polish neighbors – on July 10, 1941.
The play opens in 1925 with the classmates singing and playing together in elementary school. Before it ends eight decades later, their lives will be irrevocably altered, their childhood dreams destroyed. As the town is invaded first by the Soviet Union, then by Germany, they will be swept up in the violence and trauma of war. There will be acts of betrayal, murder, rape and revenge continuing into the communist and post-communist eras, haunting survivors and perpetrators alike.
By refusing to demonize his characters, playwright Slobodzianek forces us to consider the nature of human behavior in extreme situations. His unsentimental depiction moves beyond the notion of individual heroism and cowardice to a compelling exploration of collective guilt and moral responsibility.

For tickets, please call 617-627-3493.