Bedford School and Mark Rutherford drama students took part in a workshop led by Steve Lambert, the creative director of Badac Theatre Company. This was then followed by a performance of the critically acclaimed production ‘Ashes to Ashes’, made particularly poignant by Holocaust Memorial day on 27th January.
The workshop focused on putting theatre practitioner, Artaud’s theories into practice and the students were encouraged to explore the purpose of theatre and the responsibility of the actor or director to represent the truth. Badac creates pieces of theatre that explore human suffering, and the students were asked to consider how best we can represent this to an audience in a way that it does justice to the victims involved.
“The workshop was a real eye opener for the students. They started to really think about important issues, and consider how they could stage their ideas in an immersive way. Steve had such a straightforward approach, that he made it accessible for the students involved. It was brilliant!” Caroline Millington, Teacher of Drama.
The students were then able to see Steve’s ideas in practice when they watched Ashes to Ashes, a hard hitting piece of theatre that focuses attention on the experiences of Hirsch and Moshe, two men who arrive at Birkennau from different parts of Europe. From the moment they enter Auschwitz, the play details the brutality and dehumanisation faced by the prisoners there. The performance was difficult viewing and many of the students in the audience left deeply moved by what they had seen.