Review - The Good and the True

I've been in theater-going withdrawal lately, so when a free ticket for the new Off-Broadway play The Good and the True crossed my desk recently, I pounced.  Knowing this was a play about Holocaust survivors, I knew there would be sadness, but I was ready to again commune with an audience of like-minded folk to enjoy the experience of live theater.

Unfortunately, I wasn't really sitting with like-minded folk (this was a particular annoying audience and the theater itself made me sneeze; more on that later) and there wasn't really much sadness, either.  Well, I take that back.  Of course there was sadness.  Whenever survivor stories are related, there is monumental sadness.  That's just a fact.  But the way the stories were presented didn't move me in a theatrical way.

I always feel uneasy criticizing a piece about the Holocaust because these stories need to be told, over and over, and I question my right to say anything.  At one point during the evening I even thought to myself, does my nephew even know what the Holocaust is?  Are schools still teaching it?  I don't know the answer (but I'm going to ask him).  Every story is worth telling and worth hearing, but I do find myself wondering why these two particular stories were chosen to be in this piece.  And unfortunately my mind wandered enough during the play that I kept wondering...

 The Good and the True uses two actors to share firsthand accounts of two Holocaust survivors, Czech athlete Milos Dobry and Czech actress Hana Marie Pravda.  Their last names translate into the words 'good' and 'true,' which was a clever way to title the piece.  I guess if that's the only reason these two stories were put together, that wasn't quite enough for me.

photo credit: Jeremy Daniel

Although both survivors were in Terezin and Auschwitz, they never actually met.  Their stories never intersected at all, so we have two intertwined, but completely separate stories - the actors take turns sharing biographical, chronological information about themselves.  Both start with "I was born in..." and end with "I died in...".  Frequently, whenever the lights would go down on one performer and come up on another, the first words were "and then I..."  That just didn't work for me as a theatrical device.  There were nice lighting effects and pretty good staging moments (although I particularly disliked the gas chamber effect), I liked the music (though I was confused by when and why it was used), and the acting was fine (the gal is actually the granddaughter of the woman being portrayed), but all in all, it just didn't add up to anything theatrical to me.  WHY did their stories have to be a play?  Why not a film or a novel or a short story?  I just didn't get a reason for the evening as a piece of theater.

Plus, I made the mistake of looking at the program before the show.  I read the bios of the actors, the bios of the people being depicted in the play, and then, I saw a bio for The Holocaust.  I don't know why this struck me so much, but I just didn't respond to that at all.  I mean, I guess if they were doing performances for school kids of this piece, it might make sense to include 'historical info' as an insert, but as a bio?  Bothered me.  And having read the biographical information of the play's subjects, I pretty much knew their story and therefore the play.  Basically.  I mean, there were details that were occasionally striking in the play, don't get me wrong.  But basically, if you read the bios, you knew the play.  So, one, I need to keep to my 'don't read the program before a show' mandate, and two, maybe don't give out that kind of program until after that kind of show for maximum impact.  In my opinion, of course.

The audience was odd - no one really took their seat number seriously (it wasn't general admission, we had assigned seats) and there was much jostling for position before the show started.  It was really weird.  And the theater had a mildew-y smell, I'm not sure if it was from the set pieces or just the theater, but it made my eyes swell and water and gave me a sneezy feeling.  I have allergies to mold and mildew, so I guess I'll have to remember to take a cold pill if I go back to that theater.  I hadn't been there in years, so I don't remember if my allergies bothered me there before.  So I guess the sneezy feeling didn't really enhance my experience and could've kept me from really experiencing the play.  I got the sense that some of the audience members weren't as engaged as they could've been, either, especially the couple in front of me, who consistently checked their phone for the time, talked to each other during blackouts, and then got up to leave before the play was even over.  Sigh. 

I'm sorry this piece didn't work for me, but I greatly appreciate the opportunity to see it for free, and it's always good to remember the past and to remind yourself to learn from it.  But I'm greedy and want a great theatrical experience, too.  Perhaps I should be less greedy...