Haunted by Kamp

In Kamp, (pre­sented by the Push Festival) four mem­bers of the Dutch com­pany Hotel Modern, recre­ate the death camp Auschwitz using 4-inch tall pup­pets made out of wire, cloth and a few dabs of glue. Most are “dressed” in striped pyja­mas and a few wear SS uni­forms and hats and they have few facial details except for a slightly open mouth that gives the impres­sion that no one can quite believe what is going on. The pup­peteers use a tiny hand-held cam­era to project the action onto the wall at the back of the stage giv­ing the impres­sion that we are watch­ing a news­reel but the sound­track draws us in and keeps us there: the cold and lonely sound of the wind whistling through the tree­less com­pound, the sound of a truck zoom­ing across the yard to pick up a pris­oner who has thrown him­self against the elec­tri­fied fence or the noise of a train enter­ing the yard to deposit another load of pris­on­ers on the plat­form. Scenes in the play are dis­jointed and take place at dif­fer­ent places on the stage but together they cre­ate an expe­ri­ence that is more mov­ing than a movie or a book (the scene of pris­on­ers undress­ing to reveal their trans­par­ent bod­ies and then enter­ing the gas cham­ber is much too shock­ing to be included in a movie) and even though pris­on­ers die in var­i­ous ways dur­ing the per­for­mance, for me the most com­pelling scene took place in the bar­racks at night when all the pris­on­ers are crowded into their bunks and all we hear is their col­lec­tive breathing.

There are so many lay­ers of mean­ing in this short piece (the “machin­ery” of the Holocaust, the lack of free will, the fragility of the human body, the hope that we cling to right to the end, the inhu­man­ity of places that humans cre­ate) that I’m still try­ing to digest it all. The Q&A after­wards helped, but the haunt­ing sight of the minia­ture pieces of lug­gage that lay strewn on the train plat­form in the mid­dle of the stage kept draw­ing my atten­tion away from the conversation.

Catch per­for­mances of Kamp on Friday or Saturday at 8 pm at the Roundhouse, but get there early to buy tick­ets at the door — this is a pop­u­lar show.

If you miss it, here’s a clip: