Badac Theatre

BADAC THEATRE PRODUCE A POWERFUL SHOCKING JUGGERNAUT OF A WORK @ NIGHTINGALE THEATRE

After being led quietly up the single flight of stairs, the whole group is silent with nervous anticipation; you wait before a closed door. Inside you can just hear someone chanting: 'run for the beast, run for the beast.'

The door opens and you walk inside and then it hits you: 'RUN FOR THE BEAST,' screams the man in concentration camp clothes as he runs on the spot sweat dripping off his body: 'RUN FOR THE BEAST - RUN FOR THE BEAST,' it just gets louder and louder and louder, more intense and more rhythmical.

And he is still running and it feels like the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan and he just keeps going as you sit down and then suddenly he stops.

Silence.

I could hear the creases unfolding in my trousers as I move, the sound of someone sipping water, someone slightly moved their feet. Everybody, everybody watches him.

And then he begins his story.

The Nazis (the beasts) are coming, and he is Jewish, and this is a monologue about what it is like to be sitting at home, with our family, just like you and I do, only now there are bombs dropping, and fires raging and your own slow terrible destruction has started.

The death sentence has been handed down but it is the dehumanisation process, sandwiched between war and death, which will be the most terrible thing.

The Forgotten, by Badac Theatre, at the Nightingale Theatre, is a master class in the art of monologue, a monologue of the whole body and not just the voice.

As the Orthodox Jews at the Wailing Wall rock forward and back, keeping faith with the commandment to worship god with their whole body so Steve Lambert pays homage to his art with his whole body. This play would be nothing on the radio.

In a work as intense and gripping as anything I have seen in very long time.

Lambert simply becomes the Jewish man whose family is doomed to die at the hands of brutal Nazi thugs in a death camp.

There is something of the ancient art of the oral poetic tradition here as Lambert uses a bold and forceful rhythmical style with focus on repetition to entrench the points he is trying to make and tell the tale of Jewish family and their deaths at the hands of the Germans.

This is no Anthony Cher in BBC Four's 'Primo', all quiet and understated.

This is anger, the anger of people who want to act against barbarity, but cannot through a mixture of fear, uncertainly and the overwhelming and crushing brute force that holds them down.

This is work where it is often the tiny human moments that work best.

When he talks of his young daughter taking his hand as they wait for the train to the death camp, because she knows he is scared, any parent will feel their eyes moisten, just a little.

When he talks of his impotence to act, we all feel guilty; we all know that we would have been unable to do anything different in the circumstances.

He encapsulates the brutality of the Nazi regime perfectly.

Firstly in the rendition of the Nazi officers who force his mother to strip at gunpoint for their own amusement and then walk off.

The clever part is to so capture a moment of pure dehumanisation and then simply end it, without the kind of shootings or killings that would overshadow and blur the point.

They just walk away, as so many managed to do at the end of the war.

In 1973 nearly 33% of the West German civil service were ex-members of the SS and its sister organisations.

Secondly Lambert focuses on the eyes of the first German soldier that he sees, after the initial invasion of the town where they live. The whole terrible indifference to suffering that underpins the play is reflected in these eyes as the soldier and the Jewish man meet. The Jew raises his arms at the soldier, it seems doesn't even bother to shoot him.

In a sense this is a microcosm of the whole play, indifference and surrender, indifference and surrender, the complete and terrible self guilt of those who have surrendered, and the terrible crimes that the indifferent commit in the dark corners of the mind where their consciences once lived. The soldier does not shoot because he knows the man is already 'dead'.

Indifference to the plight of others is the first step towards annihilation. John Paul Sartre once said that while one man is in prison unjustly, we are all in chains. A few criminal thugs from Munich took over Germany, while the nation sleepwalked into holocaust. Some pretended not to see, the rest were gassed and burnt while no one cared. The ability of a few thugs to control whole nations of people, simply because not enough people say "No", still continues to this day. A failure to act to stop evil, by ignoring it, is no excuse but an act of compliance with that evil.

What is best about this work of art and it is that, is its humanity, beneath all the shouting, passion, and the rhythmical prose, Lambert never neglects his real subject, human suffering.

There is a painting by Picasso from the 1940's that depicts a man woman and baby lying dead beneath a table. It is called "The Charnel House", and though it is surely a direct reference to the death camps it holds resonance for the sufferings of all the victims of genocide throughout history, mainly because of its apparent simplicity and, above all, its touching but unsentimental humanity.

The Forgotten achieves exactly this. It is a powerful shocking juggernaut of a work, but one controlled with such finesse that it has the grace of a ballet dancer and all the piercing incisiveness of a surgical scalpel. Steve Lambert is superb.

Brighton Magazine

The Forgotten

I am important to myself states the anonymous teller of this Holocaust testimony with anguish, and in this realisation lies the plays greatest strength. Through a monologue bursting with anger and brutal desperation, the audience bears witness to the well-known but still incomprehensible build up to and execution of the Holocaust, but it is smaller, intimate and personal moments that prove most affecting. As the protagonist manically reproaches himself and others for not resisting the Nazis and for telling protective lies to his young daughter, it is the vivid memory of her, consolingly squeezing his hand which stops his story in its tracks. An excellent, almost painfully physical performance which should encourage its audience never to do nothing about an obvious injustice again.

An exploration of the fear and pain suffered by victims of The Holocaust during their journey towards destruction. "Then there was Rinzler. He would just shoot us. Just shoot us. No reason. No crime. Just point his gun and fire."
INTRODUCTION	SYNOPSIS	THE FACTS
REVIEWS	SHOWS	BOOKING INFORMATION

INTRODUCTION
Badac Theatre Company's production "The Forgotten" is a one-man show that aims to highlight the pain and suffering that was endured by a normal Jewish family during The Holocaust. It begins from the moment their city is invaded and follows them through to their destruction at the hands of the S.S. within the death camp at Auschwitz. The play explores the different types of violence and humiliation used against the Jewish population across Europe on a daily basis. It is an intense physical and emotional exploration of what The Holocaust meant to the ordinary people that were destroyed by it.
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SYNOPSIS
The Forgotten is the story of a family. A father, mother, daughter and grandmother. The story is told by the father at his moment of liberation from the death camp at Auschwitz. He tells it directly to the audience as he takes them through each stage of his journey describing the invasion of his city, the imprisonment of him and his family in the Grodno Ghetto, their transfer to the transit camp at Kielbasin, their deportation by train to a "work camp" in Poland, their arrival at Auschwitz and finally the destruction of his family. We experience the pain and guilt felt by this man who feels he is to blame for the destruction of his family. He feels that he should have done more to protect them and that it is because he didn't that they are now gone. Through his memories and intense physical, emotional and psychological journey we see the process used by the NAZI's to both de-humanize and ultimately destroy the Jewish population of Europe. "When they invaded I did nothing. When they humiliated us I did nothing. And when they killed us I did nothing."
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DEPORTATION - THE FACTS
General Statistics
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THE REVIEWS


BADAC THEATRE PRODUCE A POWERFUL SHOCKING JUGGERNAUT OF A WORK @ NIGHTINGALE THEATRE After being led quietly up the single flight of stairs, the whole group is silent with nervous anticipation; you wait before a closed door. Inside you can just hear someone chanting: 'run for the beast, run for the beast.' The door opens and you walk inside and then it hits you: 'RUN FOR THE BEAST,' screams the man in concentration camp clothes as he runs on the spot sweat dripping off his body: 'RUN FOR THE BEAST - RUN FOR THE BEAST,' it just gets louder and louder and louder, more intense and more rhythmical. And he is still running and it feels like the first twenty minutes of Saving Private Ryan and he just keeps going as you sit down and then suddenly he stops. Silence. I could hear the creases unfolding in my trousers as I move, the sound of someone sipping water, someone slightly moved their feet. Everybody, everybody watches him. And then he begins his story. The Nazis (the beasts) are coming, and he is Jewish, and this is a monologue about what it is like to be sitting at home, with our family, just like you and I do, only now there are bombs dropping, and fires raging and your own slow terrible destruction has started. The death sentence has been handed down but it is the dehumanisation process, sandwiched between war and death, which will be the most terrible thing. The Forgotten, by Badac Theatre, at the Nightingale Theatre, is a master class in the art of monologue, a monologue of the whole body and not just the voice. As the Orthodox Jews at the Wailing Wall rock forward and back, keeping faith with the commandment to worship god with their whole body so Steve Lambert pays homage to his art with his whole body. This play would be nothing on the radio. In a work as intense and gripping as anything I have seen in very long time. Lambert simply becomes the Jewish man whose family is doomed to die at the hands of brutal Nazi thugs in a death camp. There is something of the ancient art of the oral poetic tradition here as Lambert uses a bold and forceful rhythmical style with focus on repetition to entrench the points he is trying to make and tell the tale of Jewish family and their deaths at the hands of the Germans. This is no Anthony Cher in BBC Four's 'Primo', all quiet and understated. This is anger, the anger of people who want to act against barbarity, but cannot through a mixture of fear, uncertainly and the overwhelming and crushing brute force that holds them down. This is work where it is often the tiny human moments that work best. When he talks of his young daughter taking his hand as they wait for the train to the death camp, because she knows he is scared, any parent will feel their eyes moisten, just a little. When he talks of his impotence to act, we all feel guilty; we all know that we would have been unable to do anything different in the circumstances. He encapsulates the brutality of the Nazi regime perfectly. Firstly in the rendition of the Nazi officers who force his mother to strip at gunpoint for their own amusement and then walk off. The clever part is to so capture a moment of pure dehumanisation and then simply end it, without the kind of shootings or killings that would overshadow and blur the point. They just walk away, as so many managed to do at the end of the war. In 1973 nearly 33% of the West German civil service were ex-members of the SS and its sister organisations. Secondly Lambert focuses on the eyes of the first German soldier that he sees, after the initial invasion of the town where they live. The whole terrible indifference to suffering that underpins the play is reflected in these eyes as the soldier and the Jewish man meet. The Jew raises his arms at the soldier, it seems doesn't even bother to shoot him. In a sense this is a microcosm of the whole play, indifference and surrender, indifference and surrender, the complete and terrible self guilt of those who have surrendered, and the terrible crimes that the indifferent commit in the dark corners of the mind where their consciences once lived. The soldier does not shoot because he knows the man is already 'dead'. Indifference to the plight of others is the first step towards annihilation. John Paul Sartre once said that while one man is in prison unjustly, we are all in chains. A few criminal thugs from Munich took over Germany, while the nation sleepwalked into holocaust. Some pretended not to see, the rest were gassed and burnt while no one cared. The ability of a few thugs to control whole nations of people, simply because not enough people say "No", still continues to this day. A failure to act to stop evil, by ignoring it, is no excuse but an act of compliance with that evil. What is best about this work of art and it is that, is its humanity, beneath all the shouting, passion, and the rhythmical prose, Lambert never neglects his real subject, human suffering. There is a painting by Picasso from the 1940's that depicts a man woman and baby lying dead beneath a table. It is called "The Charnel House", and though it is surely a direct reference to the death camps it holds resonance for the sufferings of all the victims of genocide throughout history, mainly because of its apparent simplicity and, above all, its touching but unsentimental humanity. The Forgotten achieves exactly this. It is a powerful shocking juggernaut of a work, but one controlled with such finesse that it has the grace of a ballet dancer and all the piercing incisiveness of a surgical scalpel. Steve Lambert is superb. Brighton Magazine The Forgotten I am important to myself states the anonymous teller of this Holocaust testimony with anguish, and in this realisation lies the plays greatest strength. Through a monologue bursting with anger and brutal desperation, the audience bears witness to the well-known but still incomprehensible build up to and execution of the Holocaust, but it is smaller, intimate and personal moments that prove most affecting. As the protagonist manically reproaches himself and others for not resisting the Nazis and for telling protective lies to his young daughter, it is the vivid memory of her, consolingly squeezing his hand which stops his story in its tracks. An excellent, almost painfully physical performance which should encourage its audience never to do nothing about an obvious injustice again.
Three Weeks ****
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The Forgotten has just completed runs at The Brighton Festival (The Nightingale Theatre), The Sprint Festival (The Camden People's Theatre) and The Pulse Festival (The New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich)
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BOOKING INFORMATION
Please contact Badac Theatre for all booking enquiries
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