Review: The Royal Knight Stage Company of River Ridge High School Presents the Timely, Devastating I NEVER SAW ANOTHER BUTTERFLY

“For seven weeks I’ve lived in here/Penned up inside this ghetto/But I have found my people here/The dandelions call to me/And the white chestnut candles in the court/Only I never saw another butterfly…”  --from “The Butterfly (Version Two),” written in the Terezin concentration camp by Pavel Friedmann, who would die at Auschwitz two years later

It’s hard to believe that it’s only been three weeks since the recent horrors in the Middle East erupted. None of us can forget the early, awful reports, the Breaking News of slaughter, and the sad truth that so many of the victims had been children.  We can’t forget the images, the fear of the whereabouts of hundreds of hostages, and the death toll that keeps climbing into the thousands as war becomes inevitable.  And we can’t forget those words scrolled on various TV channels after the initial attack, uttered over and over as if some kind of mantra, including spoken by the Israeli Prime Minister and echoed by the U.S. President: “The worst act of anti-Semitic violence since the Holocaust.”

At the time of the Hamas attack, which started on October 7th, Mr. David O’Hara, legendary drama teacher and director of the Royal Knight Stage Company of River Ridge High School, was already knee-deep into the rehearsal process of I NEVER SAW ANOTHER BUTTERFLY with his young cast.  He chose the play, set during the Holocaust, because he had read that Florida ranks fourth in the nation in anti-Semitic activity.  Little did he or his cast know what was in store for the world.

He writes in his Director’s Note on why he originally chose to tackle this particular play: “It is a story of the effects of hate on children.  It’s a story that happens no matter what your religion or culture or the color of your skin might be.  This is why I am telling this story with such a  culturally diverse cast, each representing the objects of prejudice and cruelty that are much too prevalent in our country and society today.”

Before October 7th, Mr. O’Hara’s group already boasted their own student dramaturg (Carissa Amoroso) and had done plenty of research, sifting through writings and artwork, visiting the Holocaust museum as a group, and speaking with experts.  They knew the gravity of the true story they were telling, and they knew their work was relevant, with anti-Semitism still sadly raging across the globe and our country.  And then October 7th happened, and their story became even more pertinent, even more enflamed. I NEVER SAW ANOTHER BUTTERFLY may be set in the early 1940s, but it’s really about today. And tomorrow.

The play--written by Celeste Raspanti and based on the 1964 book I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children’s Poems and Drawings from Terezin Concentration Camp 1942-1944--is an emotional wallop even without the backdrop of current events. Set in Terezin, a concentration camp thirty miles north of Prague and a sort of waystation for extermination camps like Auschwitz, the play is told from the perspective of Holocaust survivor Raja Englandrova.   She narrates this true-life tale of a dark, grey world of little or no hope where art and poetry are the only refuge. And by the end, everyone in her life will perish at the hands of the Nazis.  Of the 15,000 children of Terezin, less than one hundred survived.  

So many things astounded me about the River Ridge production, which ends its run tonight (Saturday, October 28th) at the Center for the Arts, but mainly it’s that every performer in the cast, from the leads to each ensemble member, was 100% dedicated in telling Raja’s story.  You could feel their seriousness, their determination in not doing anything to trivialize or take away from the power of the play.   It’s as smooth a high school production as any I have seen (and I have seen hundreds if not thousands).  There is a proper somberness to their telling, but there is also so much life, so much passion. You would be hard pressed not to cry during it; I heard quite a lot of sniffles from audience members during the Friday night performance that I saw.

And the gutsy work of the young cast will shatter you.  As Raja, our narrator and guide into this nightmare world, Bella Boytsam is astonishing.  She runs the emotional gamut, quiet intensity and then anger and then sadness.  She is the lone survivor, the only one who can tell this tale, and Ms. Boytsam shows so much strength and soul on the stage. Blistering.

As Honza, Raja’s true love, Gil Vasquez is a steady presence, stoic while knowing his demise is at hand. Mileena Ruiz, so good as Regina George in Mean Girls last school year, keeps showing her immense promise, keeps astounding us, as Renka. Carissa Amoroso is quite real and lovely as Raja’s mother, and a simple gesture by her, like a hand to the face, comes across authentic rather than staged.    Other standouts include Alyssa Casbar as Vera, Lana Greene as Erika, Tallen Huerta as Pavel, Veronica Zagorodny as Child I, Alex Martinez as Child II. Annabel Perez as Child III and Destiny Karo as Child IV.

As Irena Synkova, the teacher in Raja’s life who provides a silver lining in a world of dark clouds, Lilly Grodszinsky will break your heart as she tries to cheer your spirit.  “We do not know if this is true,” she tells Raja about reports of the death camps.  Is it optimism, naivete or denial when she says, “Such things can’t be true”?  Ms. Grodszinsky is a powerful presence, calming, never overdoing it, and her loss probably hits us the hardest.  She’s so real that we buy into her being an adult to these children, and she becomes my choice as the top of this very talented cast. She has more than one moment so open and real, so vulnerable, that will take your breath away.

The entire cast works so perfectly in unison, not a missed beat or entrance: Trevor Cheatham, Kathryn Thomas, Cecelia Grab, Amyla Parnofiello, Jamie Gaeng, Quinn Ramos, Lindi Morrison, Daniyal Koney-Laryea, Thomas Lockhart, Loralei Higgins, Sapphire Mair, Blake O’Brien, Amara Young, Courtney Wilson, Ava Hayes, Anne Hatter, Ro Bailey, and Alex Lopez as the Rabbi. Bo Henson provides the intense voice of the loudspeaker announcements.

So often with young actors, their adrenaline takes over and they rush everything and spit the words out of their mouth so fast that the audience loses important lines of dialogue.  Not here.  I am quite happy to report that every actor keeps it slow, not rushing, and speaks with such clear articulation and command that we never miss a word.

The set, created by Mr. Daniel Hall’s engineering class and designed by Terry Pixler and Cierra Huthernance, works wonders.  A giant Star of David acts as a stage platform surrounding by barbed wire.  Nathan Poulette’s videos and chilling black and white photo projections add so much to the work. Lilly Marcel’s costumes also add an air of authenticity.  

The only real misstep of this production, at least to me, occurs at the very end, after the curtain call.  Mr. O’Hara plays projections of news reports of various anti-Semitic attacks on U.S. soil, and I think this is a grave error.  It reminded me of the ending of Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, which ends with a montage of the Charlottesville riot even though most of the film had been set in 1973, and it worked to better effect with Lee’s film.  Here, we already pieced the puzzle together in our heads, and we don’t need to be spoon-fed about anti-Semitism after the show where we will sadly see it whenever we turn on the evening news.  The power of I NEVER SAW ANOTHER BUTTERFLY lies on that stage with this story and with those wonderful student actors. Less is more here; let the audience have a say, let them do the work in connecting the past to our present.

Much better are the images on the screen of the faces of young people, starting in costume and in black and white and then blending into modern-day shots of them in color as their deaths in the extermination camps are announced.  This makes the same point of yesterday bleeding into today without overtly force-feeding us.

There is a reason that Mr. O’Hara is a legend both as an educator and as a director.  He picks the right subject matter at the right time.  He’s like a Nostradamus of the Arts. And there is an excitement in the air when young actors take his lead and perform a play like this with utter seriousness, soul, depth, heartache and hope.

After the show, I found a new appreciation for the simple pleasures of life, and I realized how lucky I am…how lucky all of us are.  After watching the events surrounding the children of Terezin, you will find comfort in the small things in your life, like a comfortable chair, or air-conditioning, or your dog asleep at your feet while you watch something other than the news on TV. And the next time you see a butterfly, you will know that there is someone in this world who is not so lucky.  So cherish the moment, each moment of each day, and make sure to smile in gratitude the next time you happen to glance upon another butterfly.

Photo Credit: Mike Carlson.

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