`Karski' offers a riveting historical view.

Byline: Paul Kolas

COLUMN: THEATER REVIEW

WORCESTER - Marc P. Smith, the esteemed co-founder of Foothills Theatre Company, is a man with a moral artistic purpose. Following his "A Journey to Kreisau," a dramatic account of the story of Helmuth James and Freya von Moltke, a young German couple who stood up to the evils of Hitler's Third Reich, comes the U.S. preview performance of his new work, "Karski."

Jan Karski was a Polish Resistance hero who risked his life to stop the Holocaust. Born in 1914, as Jan Kozielewski, in the Polish town of Lodz, he grew up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. Smith's play picks up Karski's life at the age of 25, on the eve of Hitler's "blitzkrieg" of Poland, and like "A Journey to Kreisau," what was presented at the Hibernian Cultural Centre on Monday evening was not a conventionally acted-out narrative drama, but a dramatized reading of events that took place during World War II.

Weaving together the elements of dialectic dissertation, espionage thriller and history lesson, with the occasional personal vignette, "Karski" comes across as an ideal radio play, given urgent inflection by the five actors who ably emote Smith's detailed text, and by Lucas Avery Lloyd, who imparts Karski with compassion, conviction and, at times, burning intensity. He's a fine choice to play Karski, with his cracking, impassioned voice and tall, angular physique.

"Karski's" framing device is that of an "interview" conducted by Michael G. Dell'Orto, who is listed in the program credits as Actor 1. He challenges Karski to prove the validity of his claims. Lloyd begins Karski's story with his enlistment in a small Polish army unit, how he was taken prisoner by the Red Army, and by faking his lieutenant status and pretending to be an ordinary grade soldier, was handed over to the Germans during an exchange of prisoners of war, thus escaping the Katyn massacre.

When he later escapes a train bound to a POW camp and heads to Warsaw, the focus shifts to a vivid account of life in the Warsaw Ghetto, one the audience is asked to visualize through the eloquent reading of the play. Smith's prose aids significantly in this regard by such passages as "people crept through the city like insects."

Between the Nazis and the Russians, we listen to what amounts to, as Karski calls it, "a slow extermination of the Polish people."

Jews and Poles alike are humiliated by the Germans. Jews are denied all civic rights and human comforts.

Mark S. Cartier (Actor 3), like the rest of the cast, assumes many roles, including Hitler and Jan's brother Marian, who - pretending to be in alliance with the Germans while actually working for the resistance - was eventually killed by them.

Cartier's most effective moments, though, are as a German who takes over the apartment of a Polish woman, Elena Novak (played by Dawn Tucker as Actor 2), who pleads with him about the whereabouts of her husband.

Tucker and Cartier read this passage with heightened emotion. Lloyd and Barbara Guertin (Actor 5), as Karski's sister, also share a quietly intimate exchange that borders on conventional theater. It's moments like these that put the historical events being depicted on a more personal level.

The reading emphasizes the frustrations of Karski's attempts to bring the horrors of the Holocaust to light with both the exiled Polish government and the allies, after, disguised as a Ukrainian camp guard, he saw atrocities firsthand.

Lloyd describes with searing feeling the nightmare of smelling burning flesh on the sorting trains in Izbica, a horrific fusion of living Jews mingled with dead bodies, screaming for mercy. All the actors, including Cha Cha Connor as Actor 4, contribute to this passage, sometimes in chilling unison.

Karski brought his eyewitness accounts to the attention of the likes of President Franklin Roosevelt and Justice Felix Frankfurter, among others, but never met Winston Churchill, who it was thought distanced himself from the Holocaust issue for political expediency.

After we are told that Karski moved to the U.S. and taught at Georgetown University for 40 years, Karski turns to the interviewer and asks him, "You have my story. Now what are you going to do with it?"

It's a fitting way to end the play, as if he's asking all of us that question. Smith's method of bringing Karski's story to life may seem, at times, more pedantic than dramatically engaging, but there is an edifying gravitas and import to the subject matter and the play's intentions that override the usual norms of critical evaluation.

It's an important work of great, indisputable virtue and should be judged as such.

`Karski'

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Written and directed by Marc P. Smith. Presented by Blue Pumpkin Productions at the Hibernian Cultural Centre, 19 Temple St., Worcester. Final performance at 7:30 tonight. Tickets: $15 general admission, $10 students. For more information, call [phone] or e-mail [e-mail]. With Lucas Avery Lloyd, Michael G. Dell'Orto, Dawn Tucker, Mark S. Cartier, Cha Cha Connor and Barbara Guertin.

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