Ghetto Rehearsals Week 5

Having missed a week of rehearsals because of camp the pressure is really mounting to finish blocking all the scenes from Ghetto. We had a historical lecture about the Holocaust this week and it was very informative, but it also made the show we are about to perform, very real. I think the reading of the excerpt about the Jews going to their deaths was quite horrifying and it makes me feel that if we don't do Ghetto justice, we will be almost insensitive. At this stage it is hard to connect emotionally with the script because we are only blocking, but in learning more about what we are attempting to portray, the emotions are given a historical background and we can only attempt to try and understand the feelings of the people we are hearing about. We also began work on the execution scene this week which I at first thought would be quite 'cool' but I surprisingly found it very difficult. When we turn to face the wall on Kittel's request, every single member of the company is squeezing each-others hand/shoulder etc extremely tightly and I know that I actually became very nervous when looking away. I think that the final scene is going to be portrayed very tastefully. If it had been too symbolic, the scene would have made a very real story - an abstract art-form. If it had been too gory and realistic I don't think any of us would have coped, or would have been able to take the scene seriously. The current vision for the scene has a good balance between both, and although it is taxing on the actors, it is not making an overdramatized mockery of a very traumatic event.