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Ballantyne’s ‘Block 5’ to return to stage
The play will be presented at the Victorian Players theater in January.
YOUNGSTOWN — “Block 5,” the fact-based account of a horrifying incident at a Nazi concentration camp, will return to the stage in the upcoming season.
The play was written by J.E. Ballantyne Jr., a director and actor for decades in the Mahoning Valley theater scene. It won 10 Marquee Awards, which honor the best in regional theater, after it premiered at the Oakland Center for the Arts in 2005. It hasn’t been performed since that year.
J&B Production Arts Services, Ballantyne’s company, will produce the play in association with the Victorian Players in January. It will be a special event at the Mahoning Avenue theater, and not part of the Victorian’s season.
Ballantyne, who will direct the show, said it is being reprised for a number of reasons.
“First and foremost, the show is being done because it is a very important show for everyone to see,” he said. “It makes a very important statement about the Holocaust and the type of treatment that was handed out by the Nazis against scores of people that they deemed to be ‘undesirable.’”
Ballantyne has received many requests to re-stage the show. He said he has received interest from producers and theaters in other cities who are interested “in putting it on a bigger stage,” although he would not reveal any further details.
Several members of the original cast will return, including John Cox, C. Richard Haldi, Tim McGinley, Glenn Stevens and Alan McCreary. Other roles will be filled by auditions, which have not yet been scheduled.
A production of “Block 5" was attempted a little over a year ago at Top Hat Productions, but it never got off the ground. That’s because the casting of two roles and key financial support both fell through at a critical time, said Ballantyne. He decided to postpone it rather than sacrifice quality.
“Block 5” will open Jan. 15 and run for three weekends at the Victorian Players theater on Mahoning Avenue, near downtown. Ballan- tyne said he was inspired to write the play after he learned of it while doing research for another play.
“I ran across a four-page account in a book about the Holocaust detailing an incident in Block 5 at the Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria during World War II,” he said. “The exact same account appeared in a second Holocaust book, with both accounts being supplied by one of the prisoners involved. As soon as I read it, I thought it would make a great character piece and would play well on stage.”
The play revolves around the seven Jewish inhabitants of the cell block. Soon, a captured British officer is thrown in with them. It takes time, but eventually they trust him and decide he is not a Nazi spy. In November, a Nazi commander comes in and tells the Jewish prisoners that all seven of them must die by Christmas, and it is up to them to decide who will go first.
“It turns out to be a strong character piece as each character chronicles his life and his feelings on the situation,” said Ballantyne. “They depend heavily on the British officer for advice and support in dealing with this death sentence. As each stares at certain death, they open up about their lives, their fears and conditions at the camp.”
Ballantyne said his work is fictional but is based on an actual incident about which little is known because the Nazis destroyed all documentation concerning the camp. Study guides will be available for schoolteachers, who will be encouraged to have their students attend performances.