A play’s most challenging obstacle is the stigma attached to its specific genre. The collaboration of Georgetown’s theater department and Nomadic Theater, Dr. Korczak and the Children, explores the reality of the Holocaust without resorting to bland melodrama through the use of innovative storytelling techniques and strong acting.
With minimal costuming, a sparse set and a cast of merely five actors, Dr. Korczak, now playing at the Davis Performing Arts Center wrestles with the cumbersome moral and societal issues raised by the Holocaust. The play’s modest appearance is misleading. While the main plot consists of a Polish doctor’s struggle to save the Jewish children of his orphanage, the production focuses on the subsequent ethical issues that surround Dr. Korczak’s actions.
At the start of the play, the cast takes the stage as a group of actors who are about to put on a play and are looking for their characters. These actors begin to reflect on the situation that their historical counterparts are living in and gradually begin to take their roles as those characters. They soon return again to their roles as actors, and their personal reflections are intricately woven into the entire production.
This constant back-and-forth between character study and ethical reflection reveals strength in the cast. Both Tim O’Casey (COL ‘07) and Phillipe Bowgen (SFS ‘08), the two male actors, achieve impressive versatility as they seamlessly flow from their roles as vain, oblivious “theater kids” to the virtuous Dr. Korczak and the oppressive Gestapo Squad Leader. Bowgen turns quickly from irritable thespian to the strict militarism of the Nazi soldier, who has succumbed to the safety provided by the structure of Fascist military life.
Despite drastic changes in emotional states, the overall tone of the performance is kept under firm control with the help of lighting effects. Well into the play, the entire set is transfigured with sudden darkness and a swell of music, as the audience witnesses the first direct image of death in the form of an execution. This light change is a surprise to the viewer, who has grown accustomed to the neutral tones of the stage and backdrop. This scene, among others, evokes strong emotion and versatility within the minimalist theatrical environment.
As both a study of history through individuals and a meditation on our reaction as a present-day audience, Dr. Korczak and the Children achieves a uniquely dense perspective on a subject that conveys moral obligation rather than entertainment value. This intricate design reveals the complexities of the horrific relationship between the Nazis and Jews during World War II, now seen by society as black and white after so many years.
