Just before COVID our creative team (myself, Ms. Maria Lantz, Mr. Fin) was discussing presenting a season about the rise of fascism in the face of social divides. However, in the realm of musicals that could be responsibly produced in a high school, the pickings were slim. The Producers has Nazis...but they're played for comedy, not to mention that there are several aspects of that show that would be inappropriate in a contemporary high school. Cabaret had perfect context, but the sexual content is too explicit for a school production. I said that there was, literally, only one "Nazi Musical" that I could think of that would be producible in a high school. I said "It's The Sound of Music", Maria Lantz said, "What do you mean?"
Maria (she was named after West Side Story's Maria...not THIS one) grew up with the movie but had no idea that there were Nazis in it. It had to be explained that they don't really show up until the second half. Reflecting on this she wondered if she had only ever watched the first VHS of the double VHS set. We discovered that this was not an altogether uncommon phenomenon.
I grew up at a time when Holocaust survivors were becoming senior citizens and there was a rapid expansion of interest in preserving Holocaust narratives. I felt like there were Nazis everywhere. Partially it was because this was true, neo-Nazi activities peaked in the late 80s and early 90s at levels that wouldn't be reached again until very recently. Partially it was because my family watched Mel Brooks movies (including The Producers) and old musicals on VHS, including Cabaret and The Sound of Music...but I watched both tapes.
When I announced that we would be doing The Sound of Music this year there was general excitement. A colleague commented that she loved watching the movie with her daughters and how beautiful "the wedding at the end" is. It seemed that many people may have missed tape 2!
In 2020 there was an episode of "This American Life" that perfectly encapsulates why this musical is so relevant today, and why it fits in to our season of shows. In the episode, Diane Wu notes, upon watching the whole movie as an adult,
"Everything memorable and iconic about the movie-- My Favorite Things, the kids singing good night, "Doe, a deer"-- that all happens in the first half. But then I was at the beach this weekend with a friend...And he said a thing that changed my feeling about the second half. He told me that, lately, he can last about three minutes feeling like everything is normal before he remembers it isn't. It made me understand the urge to include the dark end of this story in the movie about the singing family. Because once everything in the world has changed, you can't really will it to stay outside the frame."
Our production presents this mythologized, often mis-remembered, classic in its entirety. Because if we can remember the story of the Nazi invasion of Austria without the Nazis, how meaningful is that memory?
As we make our memories of these, unfortunately, historic times, we must build them to be as accurate as a historical document, but memorable enough to be passed on. Memories are delicate and must be truthful. They must, like edelweiss, bloom and grow forever. People often think of "Edelweiss" as a traditional Austrian song. Ronald Reagan had it played when the Austrian Prime Minister entered a state dinner in February of 1984. In truth, "Edelweiss" is an aggressively Anti-Fascist protest song, written by two Socialist Jews from New York in the '50s.
After a long year of examining the Holocaust and our academic and artistic responses to it, here is my conclusion: It is one thing to say "Never Again." It is another thing to MEAN never again and do everything in our power to make sure that it never happens again. To anyone, anywhere. Everyone. Everywhere.
Unless we really mean it, we're just watching the first half of the movie. We're ignoring the second VHS tape. We're standing just out of frame of the photo and the future may hold us accountable for what we don't do, for who we don't help, and for what we all know is on the other side of our garden wall.
