Who are these people, socially distanced but fretting their presence upon the Zoom screen, acting out our realities, throwing them back to us via YouTube and then - disappearing in the unheard applause and a pinprick of zooming light on a computer screen? Who are these people? On the first night of their performance, more than five thousand viewers looked back at them, realising, perhaps, that they were lucky to be there and watching a play during those early days of the virus.
The play, entitled, "What do we need to talk about?" was performed in the US on/through Zoom in April this year and concerned a family meeting, a meeting which was surely similar to many other such meetings at this time of crisis.
Take another scene. A crowd of new arrivals gets off the train, and they are clinging to violin, clarinet and trumpet. A uniformed official shouts out: “Are there any musicians amongst you?” The instrument-clinging arrivals raise their hands, and move out of line. Walking with an official, the musicians are invited into a kind of concert hall where hundreds of other musicians wearing striped clothes and with shaved heads are rehearsing for a performance. But who are these people framed in isolation of memory's screen and plucking those strings or blowing their horns for us while a conductor waves his hands in a void?
This was, of course, the orchestra of Auschwitz. It is the composer and the players speaking to us, and the sounds echo in our collective memories as a message from an old world to a new world and they bring hope and a message that music in particular and live performance in general will always give people a sense of belonging and a feeling of participation.
Even though the last of the Holocaust survivors are passing away, and the first-hand accounts of the sounds that were heard when the orchestra played have faded from memory, their music reminds us, in our Corona days, that social distancing and geographical isolation do not necessarily lead to creative isolation. In these days of virus uncertainty and panic, theatrical and musical performance are available as a balm for soothing anxiety, enhancing community connections and acting in defiance of a threat to community spirit. Music and theatre are the perfect antidote to a fragile and socially-distanced world, a sense of alienation and social isolation in general. And we writers can record it in novels and short stories. Observe and remember and tell it back to the world. I have no doubt that many such works are in progress right now.
Comments