GHETTO: THE STORY
The play opens in the present day. Srulik, an old man with only one arm, is being interviewed in his Tel-Aviv apartment about his memories of the ghetto theatre of Vilna during the Second World War. He explains that he was once artistic director of the ghetto theatre. The unseen interviewer (in fact the playwright) is particularly interested to know about the last performance. When was it? Can he remember?
We go back in time to the Vilna ghetto in 1942. Jews from all over the region have been herded together to live in just a few streets, guarded behind walls and gates. Their lives are run by the Jewish Council, who must enforce all the ever-changing regulations of the German authorities, however bizarre, unreasonable or destructive. It is night, and a storm is raging. With a clang, metal gates are opened and a lorry reverses in, tipping its load onto the floor. It is a huge pile of clothing: the property of Jews who have been 'resettled'. A crowd of exhausted Jews appears and is ordered to sort the clothing by Kittel, a sadistic but cultured young SS Officer. Among the crowd is Srulik, who now has both his arms.
While this is going on, Hayyah, one time singing star of the Vilna Theatre, appears. She is dressed in rags and appears lost. Kittel spots her and orders her to choose new clothes from the pile; but while admiring her beauty he notices a bulge under her dress. She is not pregnant; it is a bag of beans. Kittel tips them all over the floor; he assumes she has stolen them and prepares to shoot her. Srulik runs on with his ventriloquist's dummy; the dummy is insolent but amusing, and pleads for Hayyah's life, while Srulik appeals to Kittel's artistic sensitivity. Kittel now produces a saxophone - he himself had trained as an actor and musician - and insists that Hayyah sing a song.
Despite her exhaustion, she does so, and he agrees to spare her life. But he insists that all the beans be gathered up and weighed. They are sixty grams short. How will you repay me? he asks, and decides on a whim to re-establish the Vilna Theatre. Throughout the remainder of the play, each time Hayyah sings, he reduces the value of the debt by a few grams.
Before the scene ends, we see a tender scene between a grateful Hayyah and Srulik, who uses the dummy to express his love for her. They sing and dance a lovely duet, 'Someone stole my overcoat'.
We now meet Gens (right), Head of the Jewish Police, who tasks Srulik with setting up the theatre. Gens is keen to make a success of the project for two reasons: the actors will have to be given work permits, which will save them from the death squads; and, as a Zionist, he thinks the theatre will be a powerful means of preserving Jewish culture and maintaining morale.
While Srulik is inspecting the theatre building, Gens is accosted by Yosef Gerstein, an actor who has dressed himself in a Hassidic frock and is trying out the character of a palm-reader. He does it well, and is surprised when Gens takes him seriously and even pays him.
Gens is however unprepared for the hostile reaction that the establishment of the theatre is about to provoke. Opposition comes first from Srulik himself, but this is overcome when Gens produces the entire company of the old theatre, painstakingly reassembled from gutters, cellars, and forced labour gangs.
But their morale is low and even a tango played by the musicians only stirs their spirits for a moment.
The tailor Weiskopf now approaches Gens with the idea of setting up a sewing workshop in the ghetto to mend and launder the German uniforms from the Russian front. He can employ 150 workers; Gens quickly agrees, seeing the opportunity to save more Jewish families. Over the months that follow Weiskopf is going to make a fortune from this enterprise.
The ghetto is soon plastered with posters by the underground resistance: NO THEATRE IN A GRAVEYARD! DON'T DANCE ON OUR GRAVES! Gens guesses that the Workers' Association lies behind this campaign and confronts its leader, the librarian and socialist Hermann Kruk. (Kruk's diaries are a major source for the events described in this play.) Kruk is convinced that a theatre is unthinkable in a ghetto where thousands of Jews have been taken to be shot in the forest of Ponar just outside the city; Gens responds by banning the Workers' Association.
The theatre company is rehearsing when they are interrupted first by Weiskopf (left), then by Kittel (right). With him he has his Schmeisser machine pistol and his saxophone, both in black cases, and he uses these to intimidate the actors. It finally transpires that he has come because the Ministry of Culture has banned jazz, and he wishes to hear Gershwin; so the ghetto jazz band is instructed to play 'Swanee', and Hayyah has to perform for more beans.
The performance is as good as it can be when one false move could mean your life, and there is a scary moment when Kittel himself joins in. But he eventually leaves, instructing Weiskopf to provide decent costumes for 'his' actors to perform in.
Some time later, the 'costumes' have arrived, and Weiskopf is encouraging the actors to make full use of them. But they are nothing other than the clothes of dead Germans, Poles, Russians and Jews, and the actors are at first understandably reluctant. Judith Lares picks up an old woman's shawl and improvises a routine of asking Weiskopf to help her free her husband from Lukishki prison; it is so convincing that Weiskopf is fooled by it and promises to help her, and leaves. The other actors applaud her performance and start working on routines of their own.
Judith now takes on the role of 'Doctor Weiner', asking for advice from a judge and a rabbi on a profound moral dilemma: with a shortage of insulin, how is she to dispense it to her patients? Without discriminating between the strong and the weak, the supply will be exhausted within weeks, but if the elderly and sick are allowed to die, the young and fit diabetics will have a supply for months.
Neither the judge nor the rabbi is able to offer help; and just at this moment Kittel appears, and gives Gens the task of implementing the latest directive. Since the Fuehrer has forbidden any increase in the Jewish race, no family may have more than two children, and any more than that are to be disposed of. Suddenly we see hordes of screaming families; Gens with a stick counts them through, 'Father, mother, child, child...'
Kruk, via his diary, provides the narrative, showing how even in these circumstances Gens finds a way of saving a single life, grabbing a condemned child while no-one is looking and thrusting him into the arms of a father who has only one of his own. The lamentation of the families turns into a lullaby...
When the stage clears the actors are still there debating the insulin, only now the argument has become real. Judith has fully taken on the character of the doctor. She still wishes to find some moral basis for selecting between patients; the others accuse her of Nazi medicine. She rounds on them furiously and flings the accusation back in their teeth. As the rehearsal breaks up, Gens appears, drunk and muttering 'Father, mother, child, child...' Only one actress, Ooma, remains behind, and begs him to join the resistance in the forest. Gens responds with a justification of his work in the ghetto; he foresees the defeat of the Germans and is determined to save as many Jews as he can. He explains the significance of the insulin: in order to survive, we must protect the strong. But he feels the guilt, and collapses in tears in Ooma's arms, while she sings to him tenderly.
The second half opens with a rousing number: 'Yiddishe Brigades', sung by the company while passing laundered German uniforms to one another in a human chain. The scene changes to a hole in the ghetto wall at night; four black marketeers are smuggling in supplies for Weiskopf hidden in a coffin. They are discovered by Gens, who arrests their leader, Luba Grodzenski, pending their payment of a fine. The three men, left on their own, cheer themselves up with a comic song 'Isrulik'.
Yosef Gerstein, the 'Hassid', unfortunately comes across them at this moment. He has clearly been making a success of his palm-reading routine and now tries it out on the ruffians. It turns nasty and he is knifed and robbed; they plan to dispose of his body by hiding it in the coffin, but when they open it, instead of their goods, they see a shrouded figure rising Dracula-like from the dead. They flee in terror.
The figure is of course none other than Kittel, who always contrives to arrive in unexpected ways. Kittel puts on a pair of glasses and becomes a new character: Doctor Ernst Paul of the Rosenberg Institute, an organisation whose mission was to eradicate Jewish culture. Sobol's play requires that the same actor play both Kittel and Paul as a way of embodying the double attack of the Nazis on the Jewish people: Kittel represents the physical threat, Paul the spiritual.
Paul arrives at the library of Hermann Kruk (left) and introduces himself as an expert in Jewish lore; he persuades him that his researches are intended to seek out and preserve, not destroy, Jewish cultural artefacts. In the course of their enlightening conversation we learn much about Kruk; his communist past, his disgust at the Jewish collaborators. Reluctantly he agrees to assist Paul.
The black marketeers are arraigned on a charge of murder and executed while the company sing 'Isrulik', this time as a lament. Kittel announces the dissolution of the Jewish Council and the appointment of Gens as sole ruler of the ghetto. The new chief of police is to be Dessler, who despite being Jewish is as brutal a thug as any of the Gestapo.
Gens celebrates his appointment by holding a ball for the Jewish Police and German dignitaries. Weiskopf is delighted to organise the event, seeing the opportunity to strike more lucrative deals with the Nazis.
The actors of the theatre are recruited to provide the entertainment, and Hayyah reduces her debt further with some sparkling and poignant performances.
During the ball, Srulik's dummy takes his impudence to the limit, but - despite the provocation - Kittel still finds his antics amusing.
Jewish prostitutes are also provided, and although the Germans mostly succeed in avoiding temptation, the scene rapidly degenerates into an orgy of sex and drinking. Kittel strings Weiskopf along and lets him believe he has arranged for him to discuss his business proposals with Goering.
But the last act is predictable: the Jewish police are dragged away from their mistresses and sent to a nearby ghetto to eliminate half of the population. Kruk narrates with disgust how they made a party of it, eating and drinking the whole time as the hundreds of victims were shot. Gens once again tries to minimise the damage, but only ends up drowning his sorrows and wallowing in self-pity.
Hayyah is discovered in the library by Kruk; he has changed his mind about the theatre and now sees it as a valuable way of focusing resistance. He gives her a Russian army manual. As she walks through the street she is intercepted by Kittel; luckily he cannot read Russian and thinks the book is a play. He now becomes Doctor Paul again and visits Kruk. It becomes clear that he is now hoping that his collaboration with Kruk will save his life when the Germans lose the war; the Russians are expected to arrive soon.
The theatre company rehearses a song of the resistance for Mayday, joined by Hermann Kruk. Gens stops them and objects violently to their apparent espousal of the resistance cause. He proposes instead a new nationalist agenda: Hebrew language and song, Palestinography in the schools. Many of the actors are unimpressed, and he gets angry and leaves.
Hayyah chooses this moment to tell Srulik that she is going to escape to join the resistance in the forest, leaving that night via a sewage duct. She wants Srulik to come too, but he is intent on staying. He knows that there will be savage reprisals on those who remain behind. The dummy pleads with her not to go: 'At last, she's playing Grand Opera! But who'll die in the last act?'
Gens has now decided to wind up the theatre and wants Weiskopf to use the building as another sewing workshop. This way, provided he can convince the Germans that the extra workers are necessary for the 400 carloads of uniforms that are on their way, he can save 500 families instead of 40. Weiskopf objects that the scheme is impractical; he has already prepared his own plan, and doesn't need more than another 50 workers to deal with the extra work. Kittel arrives at this moment and wants to know what the argument is about. Gens has difficulty preventing Weiskopf from betraying his true intention; but then Dessler arrives with some contraband goods found in Weiskopf's room.
Suddenly Weiskopf is under intense pressure, and cracks up, begging hysterically and grasping at Kittel's uniform. Dessler is instructed to take him out, which he does, beating him half to death. Kittel then reveals that he knew all along what the argument was about, and that he had seen and approved Weiskopf's plan. He was just watching the argument to see whose will was the stronger.
He now tells Gens of a new regulation; in view of the number of people escaping from the ghetto, whole families and work gangs will be shot in future every time one of their number disappears.
Kittel now insists on seeing the actors; he wants a preview of what they are rehearsing. A pile of Nazi costumes appears in the gloom; the actors' faces and hands are blacked out, and all we see are mysteriously animated uniforms. One, different from the rest, is apparently Hitler; he is played by Srulik, and holds the Dummy, the only face we see on the stage, who represents the Jew. Hitler uses all his oratory to stir his cohorts into hatred, and the chilling scene climaxes with the gassing of the Dummy as the Nazis screech out a discordant rendition of Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy'.
'Bravo! Bravo! I do appreciate satire...' Kittel applauds sarcastically. He insists on seeing the actors, but Hayyah's costume turns out to be empty. Infuriated at her escape, and the fact that she still owes him a few grams of beans, Kittel proposes to shoot the theatre company. 'Faces to the wall! Machine gunner, place the gun in position!'' But instead of a machine gun carriage, we see Gens bring on a cart loaded with bread and jam. 'Everyone, turn around!' The actors turn, terrified, convinced they are going to die. Kittel bursts into laughter. 'That's so funny! You thought I was going to shoot you! And after your magnificent performance...' He invites them to eat the food; while they do, the Dummy sings a simple but moving song; then, without warning, Kittel lifts his Schmeisser and guns down Gens along with all the actors, except Srulik. He lifts his gun towards the ventriloquist, who raises his hands, dropping the dummy.
The final moment of the play is surreal and heartbreaking. The dummy, magically, gets to his feet, walks over to Kittel, and impudently sings to his face one last verse - in his own voice for the first time in the play. Kittel shoots the dummy, who sinks to the floor at the same moment as Srulik's arm is shot to pieces. Clutching his wounded arm, Srulik struggles over the piles of bodies to the front of the stage, becomes the old narrator from the first scene, and says simply:
'Our last performance? Our last performance... Wait a moment...'
THE VILNA GHETTO
THE CHARACTERS
THE SONGS
THE AUTHOR'S NOTES
THE COMPANY