19
September 2007
Word
Count: 1,239
By
Jez Strickley
You can’t have
perfection in a world that is living.
(Brunhilde; Act II, Scene VIII)
Steeped in the potent themes of eugenics and social discrimination, ‘The
First To Go’ is a haunting piece of theatre which spotlights the Disabled
Holocaust: one aspect of a much wider and more diverse killing field that,
according to the author’s introduction, is largely overshadowed by its Jewish
counterpart.Told through the eyes of
disabled and non-disabled characters, Nabil Shaban weaves a tale which moves
from contemporary
The first scene sets the tone in dramatic fashion by portraying a
chilling present day case of hypnotic regression.In this state of mental playback George, a
man confined to a wheelchair and who is seemingly reliving the ambitions of Adolf
Hitler, pronounces the looming spectre of a biocractic state, and its
accompanying onslaught against the disabled community.The ironic nature of George’s regressed
identity is very much of a piece with Shaban’s writing style, which demands the
reader’s complete and undivided attention, and a fair degree of critical
thinking to boot.In short, there is no
mental exit for the lazy reader.
Following this highly evocative opening the play builds upon its already
considerable momentum by moving directly on to its centrepiece.Here, a group of institutionalised disabled
German citizens, and their medical attendants, gradually confront the machinery
of Nazi Germany’s looming euthanasia programme.In switching from present to past, Shaban makes important associations
between Nazi Germany’s Disabled Holocaust and today’s climate of physical perfection
– a state of affairs which Shaban terms ‘Body Fascism’.As events continue apace there is presented
another, equally well-drawn backdrop, in the form of the July 20 Plot of
1944.This real-life episode is delivered
in a finely judged manner, focusing as it does on the motives and
justifications of the plotters themselves.In choosing to portray the events surrounding this attempted coup, Shaban
examines the moral reasoning of those individuals who resort to violence as
their final answer.Just such a terrible
conclusion is evidenced, albeit in a strikingly open-ended fashion, in the last
actions of George, a man who has more than just the shadow of the past on his
mind.
Within these meticulously assembled scenes there are portrayed, as
Shaban himself calls them, disabled heroes: the nurse Brunhilde, the
philosopher Siegfried and Hitler’s would-be assassin Claus von
Stauffenberg.In contrast, Shaban keeps
his scales finely balanced by inserting a particularly notorious disabled
villain: Josef Goebbels, Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. In selecting one of Nazi Germany’s most
infamous figures, Shaban raises a further irony, in that it was Goebbels who
applied his not inconsiderable skills in media manipulation to mount a deliberate
campaign against Nazi Germany’s disabled population – a population of which he
was himself a member.
Shaban is careful, however, not to paint a caricature of Goebbels.Instead, there is drawn a character who
reasons and analyses his way through circumstances around him, thus portraying an
even more shocking individual in the process.Authenticity is a common trait of the other characters that appear in
the course of the story.Heide, one of
Siegfried’s disabled friends, is a case in point.Her final line: “I’m human, too” (Act II, Scene XII), announced as the hypodermic
killing machine pitilessly rolls into action, strikes the reader with such a
profound sense of understatement that it drives home Shaban’s moral probing
with irresistible force.Heide is not
the only example.Helmut, a man with
Downs Syndrome, makes what is perhaps the most damning point of all, when he
observes that: “We don’t wear
badges.We don’t need to.Our bodies are our badges.”(Act I, Scene
IV)Helmut’s remark upon the social
discrimination branded on to his body, and the bodies of his friends, is a
The love which develops between Siegfried and Brunhilde is another point
of characterisation worth noting.Their
growing bond becomes arguably the greatest weapon against the ideology which
strives to wipe out any traces of disability – or should that be difference? –
from the face of the Third Reich.And,
moreover, it is Brunhilde who digs up what residual humanity there is in the
characters of Eva, another of the medical attendants, and who joins the story
telling circle formed by Siegfried and his friends, thereby recognising their
humanity in the process.
A further dimension found in Shaban’s writing is his shrewd choice of
moral and social issues, which help to fine tune his narrative and trigger the
reader’s interrogation of the text.One
clear example is found in the story telling circle of Siegfried, Heide and
Helmut which enables these three – and later Brunhilde – to forge their own
community: a community which acts as a buttress against the relentless social
corrosives applied to them each day by some of their attendants.Medical practitioners such as Dr.
Spottegeburt and Dr. Brandt echo the hollow rhetoric of the eugenics lobby, cosmetically
hiding their appalling notions behind a gleaming façade of clinical precision
and sterile words.In these brilliantly
formed characters there is revealed the type of human being who can degrade and
socially butcher his or her fellows in much the same way as one might conduct a
discourse on the importance of good footwear.The calculating inhumanity of this pair is no figment of Shaban’s
imagination, but it is to the author’s credit that they do not become
exaggerated grotesques, but rather, like Goebbels, remain authentic and, as a
result, stamp an even colder and more frightening shape upon the reader’s
consciousness.
Assembling this multilayered tale, which seamlessly moves between the
past and the present is no little challenge.Shaban’s effort is an outstanding example which deftly traces the
terrible contours of the Disabled Holocaust through events both contemporary to
it as well as those somewhat closer to the here and now, and which undoubtedly rest
within its considerable shadow.
Incredibly, ‘The First To Go’ is no gargantuan epic and its two acts may
be digested at a single sitting.However, its weighty subject matter and rich dialogue deserve a far more
protracted – and considered – consumption.In addressing the Disabled Holocaust and its victims – labelled by the
Nazis as ‘Useless Eaters’ – Shaban helps to publicise a tragedy which is in
serious need of contemporary scrutiny.And, bearing in mind the understandable anxieties of the disabled citizen
who lives in a world in which genetic screening and the legally – as well as
socially – acceptable abortion of disabled foetuses is a growing trend, it is little
wonder that the fear that the dark matter of 1930s and 1940s Europe should rise
to the surface once more is more than a little justified.
‘The First To Go’ (ISBN:
978-0-9548294-1-4) is published by Sirius Book Works Publishing and includes a
detailed introduction from the author.It also contains an appendix which presents the paper ‘Disability and
the Performing Arts – There is No Fair Play’, written by Nabil Shaban in May
2000 and submitted to the UK Government’s Department for Education and Employment.