By Lachlan Williams:

Way to Heaven is a translation of a superb script from Spanish writer Juan Mayorga which details the execution of an elaborate Nazi plan during World War II. Detained Jews were forced to re-create a kind of “display village” for the international community, in order to distract them from the horror of the holocaust and give a veneer of deniability to the Nazis actions.

As you enter the Griffin’s uniquely-shaped performance space, you’re confronted with an old man (Nicholas Hope) who tells the story of his visit to a Nazi “camp” as a Red Cross observer in 1942. Of course, he knows now the full extent of the Nazis’ genocide, but at the time he’d heard only stories.

He recounts a surreal visit to the camp, in which he is introduced to the “mayor” of the town, which his SS guide describes to him as an experiment in self-determination for the Jewish people. He is almost certain that something is amiss, but isn’t able to put his finger on it and he leaves, satisfied if bemused.

In this manner we’re drawn in to the bizarre and true-ish story of Theresienstadt, a concentration “30km north of Berlin” that was presented to the outside world as a model Jewish settlement during the holocaust.

The next hour-and-whatever after the observer’s tale are spent in the backscenes of this elaborate charade, as a relatively benign and worldly SS officer (Nathan Lovejoy) and the Jewish man he has “cast” as the mayor of his town (Terry Serio) rehearse, plan and somehow bond.

These scenes are interspersed with rehearsals for the upcoming visits, and there emerges a genuinely eerie interplay between the forced, mechanical mundanity of the “town” and desperation and fear that it covers. The series of contrived, fractured period scenes are lit to give the impression of distinctness and distance – it later become clear that these are the rehearsals for the benefit of international visitors.

Throughout the play staging and directorial choices oscillate between a sumptuous, amateurish theatricality and a harsh, ruthless realism that contrast perfectly against one another.

What emerges from an initially confusing and unsettling  juxtaposition is a complex and frightening examination of power, control and the way “performance” changes who people are.

The staging, which is largely brutal, anti-theatrical, ruthless and modern is almost flawless. The only complaint is reserved for the lighting design. While the use of lights on the audience instead of blackouts is conceptually convenient and illustrates the themes of the play, its execution is clumsy and intrusive.

My judgment may have been tempered by the fact that the production team chose to place one of the audience lights three feet in front of my seat, focused at eye level. Hence scene breaks for me became split-second migraines, and the longer sections in which the audience was lit were only watchable if I shaded my eyes with a notepad, which apart from anything else must have been off-putting for the performers.

Nathan Lovejoy is the standout as the disinterested Nazi, caught between condescending sympathy for his prisoners and the convenience of his position. Serrio’s performance as a cautious, scared and proud Jewish man resonates strongly and the human (rather than theatrical) centre of the play is the journey of these two characters from dislike to antipathy to an odd kind of respect.

Way to Heaven is miles ahead of the average holocaust play. Where a lesser work would rely on convenient and shared historical knowledge and judgments, this play either interrogates and undermines those assumptions, or ignores them completely. What emerges is a something that treats its subject and its audience with the respect and intelligence they deserve.

Show Details: Way to Heaven

Ride On Theatre/Griffin Independent

Full $30; Seniors $26;
Concession/Preview/Matinee $23;
$15 Rush Mondays
School Groups $15 ($22 including admission to Sydney Jewish Museum)

All Shows 7pm

Lachlan Williams is a Sydney-based writer, comedian and musician and has worked with Australian independent live theatre.

Tags: griffin independent, independent arts review, Lachlan Williams, ride on theatre, way to heaven