The theatre cast for Sound of Music visited the Samuel Bak Museum on Feb. 12 as they prepare for the spring musical on March 5-8. The purpose for the trip was for the cast members to deepen their understanding of the time period, the characters they play, and the significance of the play as a whole.
The museum, host to various artwork from Bak, a Jewish-American who survived the Holocaust, and his paintings cover the emotions surrounding the atrocities regarding the Holocaust.
Director of education at the Samuel Bak Museum, Kati Larson, facilitates field trips to the museum for schools in the metro area. Larson taught seventh grade English and Holocaust Education at Lewis and Clark Middle School before becoming the director of education at the Samuel Bak Museum. Now, Larson teaches Bak’s work, which is about finding hope in even the worst situations and seeing empathy in everything.
“Our mission is human rights, genocide and Holocaust education,” Larson said. “And so if the art and the activities that I create to go along with the art, can create those conversations where kids are looking at each other in the world with some new perspectives, some new empathy, some new respect, I think that’s super important.”
She taught her students about finding hope in tragic times and always showing empathy in her Holocaust class everyday at Lewis and Clark, and even carries over into her current job as director of education.
“I saw it make a change and a difference in the way kids looked at themselves, looked at each other, their level of empathy grew, their level of understanding of differences in people to be an asset and not something to fear,” Larson said.
Stage Manager Emilia Selph spoke about the heaviness of “The Sound of Music” and mentioned that even though most of the play is lighthearted and fun, the Holocaust is still happening. She said she hopes that the cast, no matter their role, understands how heavy of a situation they are working around.
“Well, it helps me better understand the struggle that people went through genuinely,” senior Dorian Kellogg, who plays Captain Von Trapp, said. “And it just shows like you can really pursue through anything, if you just keep your head up and hope for the best.”
Keeping their heads up is what the people affected by the Holocaust had to do, as the treatment they received was horrendous, if they didn’t maintain some sense of hope it would’ve been very hard for them to keep on going.
“This museum has really helped, because it really lets me see, like, from one specific person’s perspective, how all of this can affect them, like, how they were treated, the impact it has both, like, socially, like, mentally, physically,” junior Braylon Kochera, who plays Herr Zeller said. “It allows me not to necessarily portray the hatred a little better, but to understand where it’s all coming from.”
Understanding the place a character comes from, or the environment surrounding them is important for properly respecting the people beyond the play, and helping not only the audience value the characters but to ensure that the actors also do.
“I’ve learned the idea of struggle and the idea of coming to justice, and I really want to put that into Captain von Trapp, and especially with the coming to justice part, as he is an Austrian, he sees German people taking over where he lives,” Kellogg said. “And I want to put that into my character as best as I possibly can, and also show the struggle and like the sadness that he’s going through.”
Even though he had his homeland taken over by a hostile presence, Von Tapp had to maintain a feeling of hope throughout the occupation, or else risk falling into despair. Which Samuel Bak shows through his paintings.
Samuel Bak’s paintings are chock-full of symbolism and metaphors, often containing ideas about hope and pride, but also making sure everywhere you look you can see and understand something different.
“The one thing I learned that I can really like take out of this museum is just how art was like, being used to express all these ideas,” Kochera said. “Like, I am such a huge fan of the mementos paintings and the paintings revolving around justice, because I love the ideas they convey. They’re conveyed in such interesting ways. If you go look at the Justice paintings, they have like a million scales, but all these scales are like, different in each way. And I think that’s super interesting. And you can tell a million stories with just this one painting.”
The justice series paintings, created by Samuel Bak in 2015 showcase the duality of the justice system.
“What really moved me the most was that middle painting right there,” Kochera said. “Justice is blind. And it’s like half and half. It’s one where it’s blind, one where her eye is open, and there’s like a million differences on each side, like each side that shows the good and the bad, the bad and the good. It’s like a 50/50 split. It’s like yin yang. And I don’t know, I think it was really eye opening. And I love that painting so much. “
Art is a gateway into the soul, and contains so many different interpretations and meanings to a whole slew of people. Everyone finds something special in art, finds a story or learns from it in some way or another.
“You can know someone’s story,” Larson said. “You can read about it. You can hear about it, but until you hear it from their own, that’s just a whole other level of understanding.”
