Holocaust plays usually come drenched in sepia-toned nostalgia. People speak in an old-timey way, morality and history lessons mixing in a didactic, mildly condescending fashion. With East of Berlin and The Russian Play, the highly intelligent and unconventional Hannah Moscovitch wrote historical plays with a contemporary self-awareness, the characters both anachronistic and entirely of their time. Her newest work, The Children’s Republic, has twinges of that, but without the pathos and the humour of those two earlier works. While it never has that good ol’ fashioned Holocaust feel to it, it is difficult to say what feel it does have. The Children’s Republic begins with a quietly confident gentleman, Dr. Janusz Korczak, (Peter Hutt) giving money to a distraught boy, crying in the streets of Warsaw. In a moment, what looks like a well-off man pitying a poor boy is revealed to be the opposite. Seeing through the young man’s performance, he invites him to his orphanage, where the soup is mostly edible and the children rule. They even have their own court. This isn’t an uplifting drama about rising above your circumstances–it is 1939, and Moscovitch focuses on the last years of the fascinating Korczak’s life, the slow accumulation of events that ended with him and his wards being transported to Treblinka. Even with the known end looming, Moscovitch impressively suggests doom while also engaging us in the everyday details of keeping 200 children alive. As Korczak, Hutt is deliciously sly and a bit removed, addressing his charges with ironic affection. In the republic that he has established, the children moderate themselves, even if they don’t always want to. As the world around them falls into the hands of the Nazis, sometimes dealing fairly is just a more exhausting way to starve. And so there’s Israel (Mark Correia), an anarchic presence in the orphanage, compelling everyone, including Korczak, with his dark moods and passionate behavior. Only Stefa (the stalwart Kelli Fox) remains wary. The relationship between Korczak and Israel is fascinating because of how private it seems. But privacy isn’t the most theatrical, and the eventual revelation shared between the two is disappointingly obscure. More than anything The Children’s Republic denies an easy emotional response. Composed of many quick and bluntly spoken scenes, there is strength in its lack of sentimentality. But Alisa Palmer’s swift, no-frills direction aims for naturalism when really, the play would benefit from a mood more fragmented and unreal, as the darkening world must’ve seemed to the children. Camellia Koo’s set design flirts with abstraction, evocative and sinister. Like her work on the original production of East of Berlin, Koo has angled a wall upstage, suggesting a hallway, an infirmary, a street; bleakly grey and lit with bare bulbs. It’s a neat trick, dividing the stage to feel both indoors and outdoors. And while it works nicely for the set, it doesn’t do as much for the story. I left the theatre interested in the characters and their world, but mystified and ultimately unsatisfied by what I had witnessed. THE CHILDREN’S REPUBLIC by Hannah Moscovitch; directed by Alisa Palmer; set and costumes by Camellia Koo; lighting by Kimberly Purtell; sound and music by John Gzowski. At the Tarragon Theatre Mainspace, 30 Bridgman Ave. Through December 18. Running time: 2 hours with an intermission . Tickets and info: tarragontheatre.com; 416.531.1827 WITH: Emma Burke-Kleinman, Katie Frances Cohen, Mark Correia, Kelli Fox, Peter Hutt, Elliot Larson, and Amy Ruthorford. Naomi Skwarna is Toronto Standard’s theatre critic. Follow her on Twitter at @awomanskwarned.
