Theater, plays with Jewish themes, and identity | Interview with Director Igor Golyak

In this long-form interview, I talk to theater director Igor Goylak about a powerful production titled 'Our Class'. It's a play that tackles timely themes of the human capacity for evil, antisemitism and the long arc of history. I saw the play in Brooklyn and it's now playing in Manhattan. Igor and I are both fellows at the Mandel Institute Cultural Leadership Program 2024 cohort.

** For tickets see the following websites: **

Here's a little more about Igor:

Igor Golyak is the founder and producing artistic director of Arlekin Players Theatre & Zero Gravity (zero-G) Theater Lab in Boston. He most recently adapted and directed a site-specific US premiere of The Dybbuk at The Vilna Shul in Boston, and the New York premiere of Our Class by Tadeusz Slobodzianek at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), a featured production of the 2024 Under the Radar Festival, which will transfer to Classic Stage Company off-Broadway in Manhattan September 2024, followed directly by his adaptation of The Merchant of Venice with the same cast. His recent acclaimed production of The Dybbuk by Roy Chen starred Andrey Burkovskiy and Yana Gladkikh in its US premiere. In 2022, Golyak conceived and directed The Orchard starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Jessica Hecht off-Broadway, which then toured to Boston.

Golyak is from Ukraine, and with his producing partner Sara Stackhouse and company at Arlekin, leads the Artists4Ukraine initiative, engaging artists to share messages of hope, peace and solidarity, and raising funds for humanitarian aid for Ukraine. Recent speaking engagements have included panels at Ars Electronica Festival, Howlround, The Transmedia Meta Lab/Mahindra Center at Harvard University, and HB Studio New York. His theater, Arlekin, a company of immigrants, has been invited to perform on famous stages and at world-renowned festivals all over the globe, including in Ukraine, Yerevan, Armenia, New York City, Chicago, Lviv, Monaco, Canada and the UK, as well as the Moscow Art Theatre. He is the master teacher at Igor Golyak Acting Studio, which offers acting classes, workshops, and training. Golyak received a master’s degree in directing from the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts in 2004, as well as an acting degree from Moscow’s Schukin Theatre Institute (Vakhtangov Theater).

#judaism #theatre #storytelling

[FriedaVizelBrooklyn]

I loved this play and hope you might consider going to see it.
As a viewer of my content you get 30% off (no benefit to me) so I hope this will encourage more people to see it.

[yvonnetitus]

Frieda, you are such a masterful interviewer because you do your research and you are a great listener which prompts excellent questions.

[IOSALive]

Frieda Vizel, great video you deserve more subscribers

[sarahbasse]

Really, really enjoyed this interview!! Thank you Frieda and Igor ❤

[jackiemiller]

Frieda, thank you so much for this excellent interview. I had never heard of Igor Golyak, or the story represented by the play that he has directed, 'Our Class.' Absolutely thought-provoking, bringing up emotions that I are hard to explain.

[joemoore]

Frieda, what a thought-provoking interview. Thank you for the time it takes to bring us great videos.

[nancyfink]

Freida, this interview represents to me your very best work...in depth conversation of the human condition from a Jewish perspective. This is why I watch and enjoy your videos. Please keep this your focus. I learn so much and go away thinking.

[Jennifer-clcl]

There's a family story that one of my Galician ancestors came to America because a group of mounted soldiers showed up to the shtetl where they lived and informed the people there that at nightfall, all the houses in the village would have their windows and doors nailed shut and would be set on fire. That it was up to the inhabitants of the village whether they were inside the houses when they were burned, or on the road moving to anywhere else.

My mother could never remember which of our family it was, but my own research suggest it was during the 1898 pogroms, because there's a Lithuanian branch of my family that started arriving in 1890/1891. This is one of the family tree areas that I'm most eager to fill in.

[Zelde-M]

In this in-depth must view interview with Jewish Director Igor Golyak we are exposed to a horrifying, heartbreaking story of “people like us” in Golyak’s production of “Our Class.” Golyak expresses antisemitism is a light sleeper and can awaken anytime. Frieda articulates the banality of evil. This leaves me with the question Are they really like us, are we really like them? In discussing Igor’s production of The Dybbuk at the historic Vilna Shul in Boston we discover the play uncovering the layers of our history. Golyak originally hails from the Ukraine and is now comfortable living in two worlds. I call it life on the hyphen with which many of us are familiar. Thank you Frieda for this excellent, revealing interview. I find Igor Golyak fascinating and look forward to attending his productions at the theatre. Shkoyakh!!!

[marqetteliz]

I find the initial premise difficult in that antisemitism was definitely not sleeping in Poland ahead of the war. If you listen to the testimony of survivors (like the thousands done by the USC Shoah foundation), Polish Jews repeatedly talk about being subject to antisemitism prior to Hitler. Polish antisemitism was particularly virulent, and entrenched, both before and after the war. (I mean, there were at least two significant pogroms AFTER the Holocaust in Poland.)

[eleanorbrown]

This is an exceptionally good interview - really fascinating in depth conversation on theatre and also on identity. Thank you both so much.

[marybendfeldt]

Amazing! This whole idea that we ALL know right and wrong and then we can do the “right” thing that turns out to be terribly wrong. Also that hate is a light sleeper. I need to think more about this. I would like for him to elaborated more on how teaching about the past is not effective. Does he feel that story is more effective? I was not sure. What a remarkable interview and a brilliant guest. Thank you so much, Frieda!❤

[cathyangert]

Freida this is a remarkable interview. Your ability to create space for Igor’s authenticity and vulnerability is a joy to watch. As an immigrant from the former Soviet Union (Ukraine) who came to the U.S. in 92 this was a such a remarkably moving to watch because it was so relatable.

[RachG]

Another brilliant and super interesting interview. I LOVE LOVE LOVE theatre and I think it has such a hugely important role in telling these stories, making us think and understand the world…and portraying humanity at its best and worst. Also, I see Alexandra Silber is in it. I’ve seen her in a couple of things in the UK- she is BRILLIANT!!

[ChanaKay-xq]

I really enjoyed this video. Thanks for both of you.

[robertcoughlin]

Thank you for this video Frieda. I am completely unsettled by this story. I think we are all numb to the Nazi Germany horrors, but this story is a kind of horror I never considered. I can’t imagine how murderers could then live in the house of their victims. It’s so depraved.

I don’t think we can ever make sense of it but it’s better to know this part of human nature and character exists just below the surface of seemingly normal people. I ordered Jan T. Gross’ book “Neighbors” because I need some resolution of the story, but I doubt it can ever be resolved.

[StacyMarie-Texas]

I studied the Holocaust on my own for many years. It kept me up at night to hear survivor stories, most specifically the ones who said my neighbor who was my friend called me names and spit on me. Hearing an interview with a Pole at his old age say he was poor and wanted the nice homes and life Jewish neighbors had. 😔 I stayed up thinking how scary some humans can be to murder just to want what they have. It’s frightening. Some who died in camps where non Jewish farmers who killed their own live stalk to eat but didn’t ask permission first, permission to kill your own food? These poor Jewish and Gentiles killed for hateful, selfish reasons is sickening. The history of Jewish people has been such Hardship, and it is scary to think hate can rise again. I hear young kids post antisemitic story’s without knowing what they are really saying but because Propaganda on their phones fool them they join in. It’s hard to see it, I home school my kids to teach them history, to be kind, to believe in God. I pray for a better future for mankind.

[laurimas]

Very good interview- you are such a good interviewer.

[raeperonneau]

One of my favorite song lyrics is “They forgot to remember, you might be wrong.” I haven’t even seen the play and this conversation alone has made me think.

[hokhmah]

It is sad how in a war environment people act as if they were not human beings. Thinking about the jewish ghetto police, how in difficult circumstances people can act against their own people even to the point of collaborating with nazis.
Great interview as always.