Ron Morin’s “The Chimney”

In past blog entries I have asked “where do stories come from?” and the answer remains elusive. The come from “out there” or from “in here”. The miracle is that the come at all. For Gloucester playwright Ron Morin it was a trip to Auschwitz that triggered his play “The Chimney”. As he and his wife Lisa (she is Jewish, he is a French-Canadian raised Catholic) toured Auschwitz he was moved by starvation chambers that they saw. He described them as being shaped like a chimney in which two people would be forced to stand, face to face, without room to move, and then sealed in and left to starve to death. I cannot imagine a more horrible fate — to not only die in such a grotesque way but to be forced to watch another person die that way.

I have often wondered what happens in the psyche of a human being that they can do such disgraceful, unconscionable things to their fellows. I know that part of the answer to that is that they have to convince themselves that those they are torturing are not their fellows, that they are lesser forms of life. But even then I don’t understand the need to cause suffering. Especially suffering that is a travesty of all that we call human.

In Morin’s play there are a brother and a sister both tormented by the murder of their mother by Nazis. They have lived very different lives and now, after forty years are about to be reunited. From what Ron has told me about the play it sounds as though the brother and sister are in a psychological torture chamber not unlike the chimney — bound together with no means of escape in a prison that limits their ability to move.

The play is about to be produced for the first time by the very wonderful Nan Webber and her dynamic theater group Theatre in the Pines. I am a great fan of Nan and her endless, endless, endless commitment to bringing exceptional theater to the people of this area. And I can only imagine how exciting it must be for Ron to see his play coming alive under the direction of someone as gifted as Miss Webber.

In an interview in Jewish Journal, Ron says this: “Does suffering have meaning? Is there such a thing as redemption? Is there such a thing as forgiveness? Or are there acts of cruelty so hideous, so vile that they can never be atoned for?” The play addresses these thought-provoking issues.

These are good questions and timely questions in a world in which atrocities continue day after day after day. These are things I write about too. One thing I know is that suffering is a human obsession that is ubiquitous. Some of us torture others — some of us are content to torture ourselves and we are very good at that too. And what about redemption? What is redemption? This is, of course, central to my novel The Old Mermaid’s Tale. Can one person save another? Can love redeem suffering and restore loss?

And what about the question of acts so vile that they can never be atoned for? On a human level I do believe that there are things that can never be forgotten — but on the divine level I don’t know. That is something I’ve had to turn over to God.

So on May 25, 26, and 27, Theatre in the Pines will present Ron Morin’s “The Chimney” at the Rockport Art Association on Main Street in Rockport. Tickets are $15 and can be purchased in advance at Toad Hall Bookstore and at Ron Morin’s web site. Please plan on attending — and let’s talk afterwards.

Thanks for reading.