a new play by Tadeusz Slobodzianek in a version by Ryan Craig
27 Nov 2009 - 12 Jan 2010
National Theatre
South Bank
London SE1 9PXVenue: Cottesloe Theatre2
Your classmate is like your family. Maybe even more important than that.
A group of schoolchildren, Jewish and Catholic, declare their ambitions: one to be a fireman, one a film star, one a pilot, another a doctor. They are learning the ABC. This is Poland, 1925. As the children grow up, their country is torn apart by invading armies, first Soviet and then Nazi. Internal grievances deepen as fervent nationalism develops; friends betray each other; violence escalates. Until these ordinary people carry out an extraordinary and monstrous act that darkly resonates to this day.
A crowd was standing round laughing and joking as they watched us. I knew them all. They were our neighbours.
Polish playwright, Tadeusz Slobodzianek, confronts his country’s involvement in the atrocities of the last century and follows the one-time classmates – amidst the weddings, parades, births, deaths, emigrations and reconciliations – into the next.