When Neighbors Turn Against Neighbors

Our Class debuted in England almost 15 years ago, but some would say there has never been a more fitting moment for this play to reemerge—now, for the first time, on a stage in New York.

Inspired by real life events surrounding a horrific 1941 pogrom in the small village of Jedwabne, Poland, Our Class follows the lives of 10 classmates—five Jewish and five Catholic—from childhood through eight decades of their lives. The play, which opened this week at the BAM Fisher Theater in Brooklyn, begins with kids playing, and as their friendships evolve as WWII progresses, viewers watch as friendship turns into antisemitism, hatred, and acts of violence, rape, and killing.

Our Class comes to the stage at a time when audiences may find it difficult to engage with art inspired by dismal events, but may need it most. Planned over a year ago, this new production is the brainchild of director Igor Golyak, who is originally from Kyiv, and considers himself a Jewish refugee. “I grew up in the Soviet Union, and one day when I was 7 years old, my father was shaving in the bathroom and popped his head out into the hallway and said, ‘By the way, we’re Jewish,’” said Golyak. “I had no idea what that meant, and I’m still trying to figure it out.”

For Golyak, figuring out his Jewish identity had a lot to do with unpacking antisemitism. “At that point, I really didn’t understand what anyone meant by antisemitism. It seemed like it was part of the Old World, but with time, I realized it didn’t only mean Nazis—it existed for centuries since the beginning of time,” Golyak told me. “For Our Class, I want viewers to understand this isn’t a play about what happened in the past. It’s a play about what’s happening in the world right now, and what’s perpetually going to happen again and again.”

Golyak wants the play to inspire deep internal reflection, especially at this time during the war in Ukraine, and the conflict in the Middle East: “Be it Jews, or others, we will continue to burn our neighbors in a barn, literally or metaphorically, and how do we behave, knowing that this is what we’re capable of?” Sitting with these characters for three hours, watching as they move from friends to killers and victims, is troubling. But Golyak wants viewers to move past the difficulty and discomfort, and try to put themselves in their shoes. “I’m hoping viewers don’t see these as mystical, ephemeral characters from the past, but can actually relate to them,” he said. “I want people to understand that this could be them, and the monsters that live with us don’t only live overseas, they live in us.”

Written by Polish playwright Tadeusz Slobodzianek, Our Class is based on a book titled Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland by Jan Tomasz Gross, a Polish-born American historian. Since its debut almost 15 years ago, the play has been translated into more than 50 languages in close to 70 productions across the world.

Golyak had worked with executive producer Sara Stackhouse before, and had mentioned to her that he wanted to find a way to bring the play back to audiences in a new and relevant way. In an interesting turn of events, Stackhouse had met Sofia Kapkova, a producer who brought Our Class to Moscow and Israel in 2019. Kapkova fled to America three days after the war broke out between Russia and Ukraine, and was looking to expand the play’s reach to her new home in New York. “I was thinking about what I could do here in America, and one night, I thought of the people who live on the Russian and Ukrainian border,” Kapkova told me. “They’re neighbors, classmates, they go to the same market every day, and now they’re divided and hate each other. And I realized I need to bring Our Class here.”

Stackhouse brought the two together, and Our Class began taking shape for a New York audience. Stackhouse was really drawn to the play because of the times we’re living in. “It’s about people who love each other as neighbors and classmates and slide into hatred against each other without even realizing it,” she said. “We see this in Russia and Ukraine, in Israel and Gaza, and in America where families can’t sit down to dinner because of their divide.”

Our Class is dark and devastating. It features scenes with rape, and the town’s Jewish residents, including women and children being burned alive. It feels nearly impossible not to see the comparisons to the modern-day pogroms we’ve just watched in the news. Worst of all, it’s friends committing these vile acts against each other. “It really does feel like this play is an exercise that is a response to this … The coincidence of it is pretty grueling,” Alexandra Silber, who plays classmate Rachelka/Marianna, told me. “What’s really interesting about this play is in some ways, it features the perpetrators. It’s a really important function of art, to sometimes center perpetrators of great atrocity because it forces us to look at ourselves, and see if we share anything in common with their humanity. By distancing the evil and just writing it off, it lets us off the hook of ever having to examine that it belongs to its potential behavior that belongs to us, too. And this play is ruthless in that regard.”

Silber describes herself as a patrilineal Jew: “I always felt a bit kept away from Judaism for that reason, but the work I’ve done made me feel so welcome inside of it,” she said. She has played various roles in Fiddler on the Roof. At age 36, Silber formally converted to Judaism. “I felt like I actually reunited with something that had always belonged to me, but now it was official.”

Silber is joined by another Jewish actor, Richard Topol, who plays Abram, a classmate who leaves Poland for America. “Every time I do a play that deals with Judaism, I feel like I’m doing a mitzvah,” said Topol. “I feel like I owe it to my ancestors. And I owe it to the continuation of the Jewish people to do my part in telling stories that both raise up the value of the Jewish people and remind people of how precarious our existence is in a world filled with hate and antisemitism.”

While the subject of Our Class feels difficult, and the acts can stir up deep discomfort, the message is clear. “In this play, the characters break the fourth wall and speak directly to the audience, which is a very confrontational experience for the audience, because they’re not idle observers, they’re really implicated in these questions,” said Silber. “The children start off by teasing a boy, and felt bad they were teasing him, and ask, ‘But what could I do?’ And this innocent child’s question, as events progress, becomes darker and darker, and more serious. And I think, too, if we can ask that question directly into the eyeballs of the audience through that broken fourth wall enough times, it might motivate them to ask themselves the same question: What can I do? And hopefully they take some action, even if the minimum of that action is profound self-reflection.”

The mechanism by which this play stirs up the rawest emotions feels unique in this moment. In times of “unfollowing” or “unsubscribing” as a way to cope with difficult situations, Our Class is in your face, and mind. “There’s no pause button—it’s happening live and you can’t look away,” said Silber. “We’re talking directly to you, so there’s an implicit silent response that’s being required of the audience. The message is ‘What could I do?’ And hopefully they walk away with that in their minds and on their lips.”