Theatre Screening:
Our Class
Director: Yanna Ross
Running Time: 3hr30m with interval
The play depicts a group of classmates – Poles and Jews, whose story begins in the third decade of the 20th century, when their calm and care-free life is shattered by superstitions of anti-Semitism. After the break of the war the town is invaded by Soviets, later – by Nazis. The people react differently – most Poles choose to retreat to underground, however, some of them collaborate with NKVD or with Nazis. The Jews greet the Russians with relief, thus when the Nazis take over, most of the Jews are brutally murdered. Their former classmates take part in the murder, rape, torture and robbery, only few of them choose to help the Jews. After the war, some of the survivors of the massacre join the secret police, gaining an opportunity to take revenge on their former torturers. In the end, all the classmates, scattered through Poland, America or Israel, are trying to accept the reality.
Having worked in many different countries (Germany, Hungary, USA), the American director Yana Ross made her first appearance on the Lithuanian theatre stage in 2007 with Bambiland by Elfriede Jelinek, and since then she has staged eight more plays in Lithuanian theatres. According to Ross, although Our Class is set in Poland, instead of abstractly depicting Poland the play will aim at specifically showing Lithuania, while two different generations of actors, embodying the same characters, will create two different views of lives lived.
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