An image from the show Ashes to AshesBy Lucette Davies

The audience at Eastbourne College Theatre were taken into the world of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp by the Badac Theatre Company on Monday night.

Through a powerful and visceral performance the show, Ashes to Ashes, gave a glimpse into the harsh realities that prisoners would have faced at the camp.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Badac Theatre Company was set up in 1989 by Steve Lambert and Dan Robbo with the aim of exploring human rights abuses and what they can mean to the individual whose suffers abuse.  The word Badac in fact means to explore in Polish.

The show Ashes to Ashes  focused on the desperate cruelty that three Jewish men experienced when taken to the Auschwitz -Birkenau camp during World War II.  Birkenau was man’s largest ever killing centre where 1,500,000 people lost their lives, many of them in the gas chambers.

Nobody could really appreciate how the lives of the prisoners must have felt, the harsh regime these people suffered would be unimaginable for people today.  This show used improvisation and excellent acting demonstrated something of the unthinkable to its audience.

Desperate repetitive chanting of prayers and harsh demands from a guard were powerful and effective in the feelings they communicated.  The show spoke directly to the audience with the actors moving away from the stage at times, bringing the drama and all its intensity of emotion into the whole auditorium.

The atmosphere was quite dark with the actors demonstrating how cold, tired, hungry, confused and scared the prisoners could be.  We saw how they would at times question their belief in their God asking themselves how could their God allow this to happen?

The anguish of a prisoner who was given work as a guard, was overwhelming as he struggled to decide how much of a choice he had about his work in the gas chambers.

Badac Theatre company has produced a number of shows that all focus on various forms of human rights abuses.  There is information on all their shows on the Badac Theatre company  website.

Ashes to Ashes was powerful in how it communicated feelings and emotions and something that I hope I never forget.