Gus Birney Photo by Jeremy Daniel

Our Class draws on the historical events surrounding a massacre that occurred in Jedwabne, a small town in northwest Poland, on July 10, 1941. The actual number varies, but as many as 1,600 Jewish men, women, and children were forcefully corralled into a barn, which was then barricaded and set on fire. There were no survivors. The carnage, unlike contemporary atrocities committed by Nazis or Soviet nationals, was especially appalling because it was perpetrated by the victims' colleagues, neighbors, and fellow citizens.

The play centers around a group of Polish classmates, who, in 1926, are six or seven years old when the play begins. Five of the children are Jewish, and five are Catholic. Presented in fourteen scenes (or lessons as they are depicted here), Our Class follows the students into adulthood as they navigate political upheavals, vicious cruelty to one another, and unfathomable decisions made for the purpose of self-preservation. As the years roll along, the remaining members of the cohort must contend with their own traumas and culpability while facing the unspeakable ignominy of the town's deplorable past.

Igor Golyak's staging remains as boldly theatrical and thrillingly original as it was in the previous incarnation. The smaller space allows for a more intimate experience, and Golyak's boundless imagination makes use of the entire theater from floor to ceiling. The one drawback in the new thrust-stage configuration, however, is that audience members on the two long sides may have difficulty making out the scrawled and projected words and images on the oversized blackboard upstage. Otherwise, the excellent design team, consisting of Jan Pappelbaum (sets), Eric Dunlap, Golyak, and Andreea Mincic (projection, video, and chalk drawings), Adam Silverman and Seth Reiser (lighting), and Sasha Ageeva (costumes), have helped make the production feel organic to the new environment. Under Golyak's direction, Our Class ingeniously merges documentary drama, story theatre, and elements of Brecht's Epic Theatre.

Some of the images are particularly striking in the ways in which typically benign objects or materials assume horrific significance. For instance, chalk and chalk dust are used to connote violence and blood, and a large white sheet standing in for a movie screen transforms into a baby with colic and then into a shroud. Perhaps the most memorable scene involves the ensemble drawing caricatured faces on white balloons, dropping them down onto the stage floor from above, and these become the jeering and derisive townsfolk as the Jews are herded into the barn.

The performances have only gotten stronger since January. Characters who had not made much of an impression before come into sharper relief, and the result is a deepening of the complex relationships among the classmates. Notably, the actors have plumbed the moral ambiguity that permeates Slobodzianek's script and which makes the play particularly challenging to watch. (There were, it should be noted, several empty seats after intermission.)

As Abram, who moves to America and graduates from yeshiva, Richard Topol is affable and warm as a privileged outsider, and he is poignant as he demonstrates that his character is not immune to the horrors in his hometown. Ilia Volok and Alexandra Silber are quite moving as a Catholic farmer and a Jewish woman who represent hopefulness under desperate circumstances. Andrey Burkovskiy is suitably vile as Menachem, a Jewish man who goes into hiding with the help of his classmate Zocha (Tess Goldwyn, excellent), a Catholic, who refuses to save Menachem's child from assured death.

While portraying violently anti-Semitic and murderous characters, José Espinosa, Will Manning, and Elan Zafir show glimmers of humanity, making them much more than two dimensional. As Dora, Gus Birney is truly heartbreaking and turns in a luminous performance. As Jakub Katz, a revolutionary martyr, Stephen Ochsner is captivating, especially as his ghostly presence haunts his surviving classmates.

In November, CSC will present a new production of The Merchant of Venice adapted and directed by Golyak and featuring several cast members from Our Class. With antisemitism on the rise around the world, the theatre can, perhaps, help us confront the lessons we've obviously failed to grasp.