Anonymous
On a daily basis society turns to movies and plays for entertainment. Most media is targeted towards escapism and overall enjoyment. Forever Young: A Ghetto Story by Darrah Teitel and directed by Sarah Kitz has such an incredible uniqueness to any other production I have seen before. The great lack of vanity and attention to detail in the design made the viewing of this play a truly enriching experience. And hearing the thought process behind directorial choices gave me context and added a new layer of depth. I felt a true sense of commitment when the actors took their places on stage. Every line, every movement, even the blocking felt incredibly throughout and yet effortlessly executed. Although I understand the objective of the play was for it not to be immersive, I did not feel like a drama class visiting the Great Canadian Theatre Company on the afternoon of November 16th, I felt like an individual captivated by the play.
Out of all the design choices featured in Forever Young: A Ghetto Story, the one that I believe was the most effective was the costumes. The blue hair, the tattoos, the necklaces. When the play began I noticed that the characters with the bigger roles were also the ones that stick out more. They were the ones with a significant modern take on them. The costumes of the two main characters were significantly more noticeable than Christian, Joshua and Felicia. I think this is because the highlight of the play was the Jewish people who died in the Warsaw Ghetto and not the survivors. Also Joshua wears a white shirt in the beginning of the play. By the end it’s brown. And yes, this could represent his purity but I also think that it represents his childhood ending. At the beginning of the play I almost saw this character as the comic relief. By the second act Joshua was able to stand up for what believed in. I think he even shared similarities with Izzy. They almost switch personalities and views. Joshua was actually one of the deepest characters in the play in Act 2. He was forced to mature, leaving his childhood and innocence behind.
The massive chalkboard was overwhelming when I first entered the theatre. The height of the set had an ambience to it, hanging above the actors. Something else that added to the unsettlement of the stage was how the performing space was slanted. The eerie placement of the stage contributed to the effectiveness of the blocking. It really allowed the actors to have their moment. One actor would turn their back to the audience while the other had a small portion of the scene themself was very interesting. The chalkboard also added a new sense of depth to the piece. At times it almost felt like I was in school being taught a lesson. They would suddenly stop the play to teach you something and at times because of this the chalkboard was a character of its own. I found that the chalkboard really fit in with the whole play. The actors and the director made it work so well. The timing when they were writing or teaching you something was amazing. It was also interesting how at the end of the play the final scene took up such little room on the stage. It felt like Christian and Joshua were squished into the corner as opposed to them blocking the blackboard and them being centerstage. I think this was to represent that Christian and Joshua surviving wasn’t the point of the play and that the final scene was only an epilogue.
The lighting had a way of disorienting you. I didn’t know when the play was beginning or ending. At the end of the final act it was hard to know if it was an intermission or the actors were going to rip us out of the scene to give us information about the Warsaw Ghetto. I also felt like the lighting was a way of conveying emotions. For example during the final scene, the death scene, the lights were chaotic adding to the heaviness of the scene.
Walking out of the Great Canadian Theatre Company, I had not been entertained and I did not escape from reality for two hours. Instead I took away something better, knowledge. The knowledge of what the actors were showing me and the knowledge of my classmates who understood this play on a deeper level than I, a non-Jewish, teenager. Forever Young: A Ghetto Story is very different from any other play I have seen before. The great use of design and the almost minimal set along with directorial choices would give this play a 9/10. I hope to see more plays like this one in the future.