REVIEW: The Grey Zone, at The White Bear

To successfully write a Holocaust-themed play can be a huge challenge for even the most gifted playwright. How does one put into words the tragedy of one of the most horrific episodes in history?

But South African-born Jewish playwright and director Geoff Williams accomplishes this in The Grey Zone telling the tale through the eyes of Jewish Holocaust survivor Primo Levi, who is trying to write one last story. One of the pre-eminent thinkers of the 20th century, Levi is searching for some final meaning, some sense that his work has contributed to tikkun olam, the bettering of the world.

As a Holocaust survivor, and someone who dedicated his life to bearing witness to what happened, this play celebrates Levi’s legacy of hope, of seeking understanding where it would be so easy to find condemnation and hatred.

And for Geoff it is a very personal play.

“To have hope, you must believe that a better world is possible. In moral grey zones – times and places of extremity where decisions relate to survival – people with hope are exceedingly rare,” he says.

In writing The Grey Zone Geoff combines his own skills and experiences to create a unique and powerful play.

“I was studying psychology in South Africa when one day my university lecturer said he could see I wanted to tell stories. So I came to the UK to study performance. Originally, I was a musician then won a place at RADA to train as a theatre director. It was while I was in London that I started to read the works of Primo Levi. And I believe that, if you are Jewish, then the Holocaust is present in your life. I was trying to make sense of it all. The numbers are so enormous, and I was trying to understand it.

“Levi was a huge inspiration to me. I knew I wanted to write a play about the Holocaust, but I wanted to do more than just present a set of numbers, I wanted to humanise it. I felt so strongly about this because, when I researched it, I learned that, towards the end of his life, Primo Levi gave talks in schools about the Holocaust and the pupils would say to him ‘Why didn’t you just escape?’ ‘Why didn’t you run away?’

“They did not understand what it was like in the camps, that people were enclosed, they were prisoners, they had no energy, no shoes, and that escape was not an option.”

The 50-minute play is beautifully crafted, with talented performer Marco Gambino reprising the role of Levi that he first played four years ago. He is accompanied by musician Chris Brody whose viola becomes the other voices in the show. The instrument brings to life the other characters – such as Levi’s wife and his rabbi – interwoven between the haunting melodies of The Tango of Auschwitz and other poignant melodies created by people who suffered in the Holocaust.

“I first wrote the play, titled Drowned or Saved, as a performance for four actors. Marco played Levi and he subsequently suggested turning it into a one-man show, which I did, re-naming it The Grey Zone and bringing in musician Chris, using our joint musical backgrounds, to work collaboratively to portray the other characters through music.”

The Grey Zone was staged at the White Bear Theatre as part of the Tsitsit Jewish Fringe Festival and Geoff is now hoping, following in the footsteps of Levi, to take his play into schools and overseas, to educate a new generation about the Holocaust.