An inside look at the other side of the curtain after wrapping latest production
BY: BRENDAN SMITH
Staff Writer
On Wednesday Oct. 2, 2024, the Meramec Theater Department performed “Good,” a story that depicted the story of John Halder, a German literature professor, and his memories of his life under Hitler in 1933 to 1943 Germany. While producing “Good,” the theater had a few difficulties when it came to the script.
Originally written in 1981, the script doesn’t take into consideration some of the sensibilities that we as a society in 2024 do, whether it’s on subjects like religion or subjects like race.
“We’re still getting at the heart of what the playwright has said, but we’re doing it in a way that doesn’t completely shut down an audience and trigger them,” director Michelle Rebollo said.
She continued, “I’m not going to change the intent of the author, I’m just going to make a slight edit, of what I think was enough or necessary, and it might be that you have characters that are very brash or crude, we’re not going to take away from that, but in certain cases, especially when it comes to religion or race, I may have them pull back a little bit.”
The hurdles didn’t stop at the script though. The actors had to prepare themselves for a whole new experience all together, never before thinking about what life was like in the middle of Nazi Germany.
“The process was so much different than any other show I’ve been on, because we haven’t had to worry about ‘Oh hey, when in the Holocaust are we?’ We’ve never had to think about, ‘Oh, you’re going to be on stage in full Nazi uniforms hailing Hitler,’” sophomore TJ Shay said. “I’ve never had to think about that before. And being on that side of things has certainly been a very eye-opening experience.”
Once the production wrapped, the theater hoped audiences would come out with a better understanding of the normalization of negative cultural tendencies that the Nazi party heavily emphasized during their time in power.
“I think that everyone has to invest in knowing that we live in very uncertain times, and might it be good to show a person who is essentially good, slowly normalized by Nazi-ism, and fascistic thinking,” Rebollo said. “I think that’s where we find ourselves, not that we’re going to go out and be Nazis, but there’s a really thin line between how we normalize things like how we treat people who don’t look like us or don’t subscribe to the things that we do, and really moving into something quite dangerous.”
