City of Angels at the Garrick: Nearly Superb Production of a Nearly Great Showby Randi / March 12, 2020One Jewish Boy at Trafalgar Studios is Incisive, Upsetting, & Too Relevant
Honestly, forking finally. Stephen Laughton’s One Jewish Boy is the Jewish representation London’s theatre scene has been not only severely lacking but opening mocking the need for. A four-hander (that’s right) telling the story of a couple – one Jewish boy and one mixed race girl – over their 15-year relationship, Laughton’s work is like all our (the chosen our) anxieties about identity and prejudice in anti-Semitic England and the world at large distilled into an hour and a half of excellent, inventive, heartbreaking story-telling.
One Jewish Boy shares the relationship of Jesse and Alex and how anti-Semitism (and specifically its effect on the titular boy) affects their happiness. The storytelling jumps around through time to show Jesse and Alex at different points, from the day she serves him with divorce papers to the day they first meet, from their wedding day to the day he proposes, the day they decide to have a baby, in seemingly random but ultimately poignant order. The key flashback is glimpsed multiple times but never fully shown: a 2013 attack that left Jesse hospitalized. He was beaten on the street for being Jewish, as his white supremacist attackers shouted things about Hitler and gassing (lines that are played several times on the speaker system, definitely necessitating more of a trigger warning than I saw anywhere). Jesse rightly deems this a hate crime, and understandably suffers a sort of PTSD for years and years to come, as this realization of how much hate exists threatens his ability to live fully and without constant fear, for him and his son and his community. Alex thinks he should get over it.
Now I said that a little flippantly, and Alex does give him time (although the anti-therapy vibe is so very British and so very infuriating (and accurate)), but ultimately she cannot abide his inability to get over it. Even though it’s impossible not to be haunted by that sort of trauma, she sees a line where that crosses into debilitating preoccupation. And this is one of the several incredibly difficult and heavy ideas that this play handles so well. Even though I tended to side with Jesse, you see where Alex is coming from, regarding this and all their problems. Alex wants Jesse to stop letting his attack define how he sees the world. As someone who is mixed race, she definitely has experience with racism and with coping with it, and her view is valid. (Although it’s kind of ridiculous to ask a Jew to stop being anxious, like is she new.)
Where the play excels is in presenting these significant issues in a provocative way, where even if you side with one of them, you understand both and there’s no clear answer. The content is difficult because it’s so relevant, for really all young people trying to navigate a world of more blatant racism as well as longstanding cultural differences with the people in their lives. Laughton touches on incredibly important concepts like inherited trauma (done so well on season 2 of Transparent, btw), circumcision, and even who to vote for. (I appreciated the very new bits about Labour and Corbyn’s anti-Semitism in the recent general, since people are still blaming Jews for his loss and I could go on a big long rant as I have before about how Jews are really the only group to be blamed for not happily supporting people who have clearly shown to be against them but I won’t do that right now.)
A lot of the content is distressing and leaves you with a “well, fuck” kind of sigh, so the amount of laughter throughout is pretty remarkable. That’s due to the writing (some of the jokes, my god, RightMove is the Tindr for married people?? THAT IS TRUE) as well as the superb performances. Robert Neumark-Jones makes his Jesse open and vulnerable and deeply felt while also remaining likeable even when he’s being a dick, driving Alex, a vibrant Asha Reid, crazy in the good and bad senses of the word. It seemed obvious to me that in the sort of battle where no one is right or wrong, Jesse was clearly not wrong, but it could be that I identified with and understood him more for the obvious reasons. Or maybe I side so strongly with Jesse because he liked to stay home and Alex seemed like a ‘fun girl’ who likes to go out, yeesh. But they both feel so authentic and so connected to each other’s performances, making their characters’ fundamental differences all the sadder.
The only thing I actively disliked was putting forward as fact, through Jesse’s statements, the dangerous idea that white Jews are not white. This is an ugly battle that Jews face, and to give in to the idea that Jewish is a race and not a religious or cultural identity plays into and gives ammunition to the ever-increasing othering. It wasn’t clear if this was a statement being made by the author or a nuanced way to show that Jesse was going over the top with his obsession about the world rejecting him, but even if it was the latter I don’t think it will be clear to many theatergoers, who might think ‘oh I guess white Jews aren’t white’ (and London audiences are traditionally mmm not the best at getting nuance with these sorts of issues; see e.g. every single other review of mine).
Aside from that, One Jewish Boy is an exceptionally discerning and sensitive play, with sharp writing and strong performances. It’s a must-see for anyone who cares about society’s prejudice and racism and rising hate, which should be everyone.
INFORMATION
One Jewish Boy is playing at Trafalgar Studios 2, the small studio, until April 4. Studio 2 is on the bottom level, the same as the bar, with one 4-stall ladies room next to the bar. There are no bad seats as it’s a small square, but I had the best seat in the history of theatre and I’m super thankful – right next to the door. Also it was 20 minutes shorter than I anticipated so I was OKAY (shout out to Greg Serrano (you know what I mean)).
There is some smoking, not to much but amplified by the tiny unventilated room, which got a little rough for me but most people should be fine. If you’re in the front row you will get vaped in the face.
Related Posts
“You Can’t Take It With You” on Broadway: Crazy Fun Times That Will Remind You of Thanksgiving
The latest all-around excellent show to open on Broadway boasts a wonderful ensemble of super recognizable actors that magically mesh together, making it stand out so far this season. (See: “It’s Only A Play”. I mean don’t see it. Review forthcoming). That James Earl Jones plays the Grandpa (of an all-white family, which I love; see color-blind casting is FINE and GOOD and WORKS) is reason enough to see this show, and you’ll become fans of the wonderful theatre and H’wood actors composing the rest of the cast.
Despite how much this revival of “You Can’t Take It With You” has going for it, every single review begins the same way: The writer concedes that it’s an antiquated play, that everyone assumes it’s too old-fashioned to be relevant nowadays, but that this production’s team has done a bang-up job (which means good, contrary to how it sounds (from now on let’s agree it means bad, like banged up) (change approved)) to bring it into the 21st century. It’s actually extremely annoying. All these writers (getting paid, ffs) follow this same trite and tired formula, as if they have to apologize for the play being old. So ageist! It’s also silly. You don’t see people apologizing for Shakespeare. And you’re probably saying, but Shakespeare is still relevant today. Well so is this! No apologies!
JAMES EARL JONES IS WAVING TO ME!!! JUST TO ME!!!
“You Can’t Take It With You”, which I will refer to as YCTIWY from here on out, nevermind that is an awful acronym so I won’t, is a Kaufman & Hart work from freaking 1936, and we are still enjoying it today. Now that’s incredible. Also, if you can ever think of the great Kaufman & Hart without singing “Go ask the Gerrrrshwins or Kaufman & Hart” from “Annie” then you are stronger than I am. Hell I couldn’t even see the play “Act One” last year because I would have gone crazy singing that line over and over in my head. (It’s about Moss.)
ANYWAY. YCTWITHYOU tells the story of the jubilantly wacky Sycamore family, with its wacky playwright of a mother, its wacky firework maker of a father, its wacky wannabe prima ballerina of a daughter, her wacky husband, and the not-at-all-wacky-or-hey-maybe-she-actually-is-like-her-family other daughter who just wants to marry up, plus all the surrounding characters, including the grandfather played by James Earl Jones, who I think is written wacky but JEJ can never play wacky so he still kind of seemed regal and wise even though he was probably talking crazy. The story concerns the straight-laced office-secretary (working girl!) daughter Alice, who wants to marry her boss’s son Tony Kirby but is beyond fearful and anxious about their wildly different families – and as we see in all their insane glory, rightly so.
Obviously, the casting is vital in YTAYKAT, because the family’s wackiness can either work and make you fall in love with all of them, or it can annoy the piss out of you. Luckily, here, the producers got everything right. This hilarious band of fun crazies is led by Penny, the matriarch, played by the consistent and consistently hilarious Kristine Nielson (who was deservedly nominated for a 2013 Tony for “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” in a super competitive year). Penny writes various sorts of plays that never are produced or really even read, and we learn later that she fell into this ‘profession’ when a typewriter was mistakenly delivered to her house. Penny’s husband Paul makes fireworks and crackers and smoke and all sorts of things that blow up in the basement at really inopportune times. Paul is played by Mark Linn-Baker, or the non-Balki lead from “Perfect Strangers”, one of my childhood mainstays. I didn’t know that Mark was in this show, and when I moved to an empty seat in the front row (from my last row of the top balcony seat, thank you very much) I kind of gasped when I realized who it was! So fun. Anyway, yeah so he sets stuff on fire in their house, with the help of his friend Mr. De Pinna, who models for a painting in Roman garb at one point and looks exactly like Christoph Waltz in it.
The best part of this production is the characterization of the daughter Essie, played by freaking thief Annaleigh Ashford, who steals every single thing she’s in. Essie yearns to be a top ballerina, and she studies with a Russian tutor very frequently, but she’s terrible, awful, no good very bad. How do we know how bad she is? Because regardless of what is happening in the play, she is dancing. When she walks to the kitchen to make her candies that she sells, she freaking leaps. Or jetes, I don’t know I only took ballet when I was 3. When she is listening to someone talking in the living room, she is practicing her (really difficult) jumps in one spot until someone stops her. When the fancy Kirby family comes to dinner, the elegant elonge’ position she takes on the floor by Mrs. Kirby will make you cry. Her ridiculousness, which extends to her facial expressions as well as her physicality, is the best part of the play, along with her husband Ed, played with matching ridiculousness by Will Brill, with his subtle but hysterical faces constantly diverting your attention from the main action to him.
Alice, the daughter embarrassed by all of her family’s shenanigans, is well cast with Rose Byrne in her Broadway debut. I saw YAKANUT in previews, and in the front row I could see a tiny bit of nervousness that seemed like hyper-awareness of what she was supposed to be doing, but overall she was fantastic. Alice really loves Tony Kirby but does not have faith in either of the families’ ability to accept and be accepted. Tony is well played by Fran Kranz, which sounds like one of the phrases Kim Jong-Il would say a lot in “Team America” but he’s really an actor who was in Joss Whedon’s magical “Much Ado About Nothing” in 2012.
Tony tries to convince Alice that they’ll be fine, that the families will get along. Of course we see things go to total shit because the Sycamores are crazy (but super fun) and the Kirbys are kind of awful and stodgy and seem like they would yell at you to sit up straighter. We are treated to seriously insane scenes when the two families do try to socialize. They actually end up in jail, naturally being arrested while the basement of fireworks is going off accidentally. It’s the kind of thing where you are sitting with your eyes bugging out not believing what is happening in front of you but also just totally loving the crap out of it.
Oh, why are they arrested? Well, Essie’s doofus of a husband fancies himself a typesetter or something, and he prints phrases that he likes on the wrappers of Essie’s candy that he delivers to customers. Turns out he likes phrases that sound like terrorist and communist propaganda so the FBI has been following the family. It doesn’t help that Grandpa Earl Jones hasn’t paid income tax in more than 20 years. Why not? Because he doesn’t trust that the government would use it well. I freaking love Grandpa. And agree. Grandpa is the voice of wisdom and gets some wonderful monologues about money and greed and of course says the title of the show in one of these so everyone in the audience drinks.
There is some surreal randomness even above the randomness of all the family members’ antics. Elizabeth Ashley appears only in Act 3 to play a former Russian royal who now works as a waitress and wants to cook the family dinner. I was like okay monster man. Very unnecessary but hey, you get to see Elizabeth Ashley onstage. Also Johanna Day plays an actress reading one of Penny’s scripts (I guess someone did read them) but she is a drunk and passes out. It’s also totally unnecessary but it’s worth it because she is still super drunk during the FBI raid, adding to that scene’s unbeatable amount of outrageousness.
YAKSCOK has a happy ending, of course, because it’s a comedy even though there are lots of snakes onstage. You kind of want to tell Alice to calm down as I’m pretty sure every single family has some Sycamore qualities, but you get why she’s anxious. Fortunately, she realizes she’s lucky to have such a loving family, despite its eccentricities. The pretty people get married and Essie keeps dancing and it’s all just a pile of smiles. The end.
ANYWAY. YCTWITHYOU tells the story of the jubilantly wacky Sycamore family, with its wacky playwright of a mother, its wacky firework maker of a father, its wacky wannabe prima ballerina of a daughter, her wacky husband, and the not-at-all-wacky-or-hey-maybe-she-actually-is-like-her-family other daughter who just wants to marry up, plus all the surrounding characters, including the grandfather played by James Earl Jones, who I think is written wacky but JEJ can never play wacky so he still kind of seemed regal and wise even though he was probably talking crazy. The story concerns the straight-laced office-secretary (working girl!) daughter Alice, who wants to marry her boss’s son Tony Kirby but is beyond fearful and anxious about their wildly different families – and as we see in all their insane glory, rightly so.
Obviously, the casting is vital in YTAYKAT, because the family’s wackiness can either work and make you fall in love with all of them, or it can annoy the piss out of you. Luckily, here, the producers got everything right. This hilarious band of fun crazies is led by Penny, the matriarch, played by the consistent and consistently hilarious Kristine Nielson (who was deservedly nominated for a 2013 Tony for “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” in a super competitive year). Penny writes various sorts of plays that never are produced or really even read, and we learn later that she fell into this ‘profession’ when a typewriter was mistakenly delivered to her house. Penny’s husband Paul makes fireworks and crackers and smoke and all sorts of things that blow up in the basement at really inopportune times. Paul is played by Mark Linn-Baker, or the non-Balki lead from “Perfect Strangers”, one of my childhood mainstays. I didn’t know that Mark was in this show, and when I moved to an empty seat in the front row (from my last row of the top balcony seat, thank you very much) I kind of gasped when I realized who it was! So fun. Anyway, yeah so he sets stuff on fire in their house, with the help of his friend Mr. De Pinna, who models for a painting in Roman garb at one point and looks exactly like Christoph Waltz in it.
The best part of this production is the characterization of the daughter Essie, played by freaking thief Annaleigh Ashford, who steals every single thing she’s in. Essie yearns to be a top ballerina, and she studies with a Russian tutor very frequently, but she’s terrible, awful, no good very bad. How do we know how bad she is? Because regardless of what is happening in the play, she is dancing. When she walks to the kitchen to make her candies that she sells, she freaking leaps. Or jetes, I don’t know I only took ballet when I was 3. When she is listening to someone talking in the living room, she is practicing her (really difficult) jumps in one spot until someone stops her. When the fancy Kirby family comes to dinner, the elegant elonge’ position she takes on the floor by Mrs. Kirby will make you cry. Her ridiculousness, which extends to her facial expressions as well as her physicality, is the best part of the play, along with her husband Ed, played with matching ridiculousness by Will Brill, with his subtle but hysterical faces constantly diverting your attention from the main action to him.
Alice, the daughter embarrassed by all of her family’s shenanigans, is well cast with Rose Byrne in her Broadway debut. I saw YAKANUT in previews, and in the front row I could see a tiny bit of nervousness that seemed like hyper-awareness of what she was supposed to be doing, but overall she was fantastic. Alice really loves Tony Kirby but does not have faith in either of the families’ ability to accept and be accepted. Tony is well played by Fran Kranz, which sounds like one of the phrases Kim Jong-Il would say a lot in “Team America” but he’s really an actor who was in Joss Whedon’s magical “Much Ado About Nothing” in 2012.
Tony tries to convince Alice that they’ll be fine, that the families will get along. Of course we see things go to total shit because the Sycamores are crazy (but super fun) and the Kirbys are kind of awful and stodgy and seem like they would yell at you to sit up straighter. We are treated to seriously insane scenes when the two families do try to socialize. They actually end up in jail, naturally being arrested while the basement of fireworks is going off accidentally. It’s the kind of thing where you are sitting with your eyes bugging out not believing what is happening in front of you but also just totally loving the crap out of it.
Oh, why are they arrested? Well, Essie’s doofus of a husband fancies himself a typesetter or something, and he prints phrases that he likes on the wrappers of Essie’s candy that he delivers to customers. Turns out he likes phrases that sound like terrorist and communist propaganda so the FBI has been following the family. It doesn’t help that Grandpa Earl Jones hasn’t paid income tax in more than 20 years. Why not? Because he doesn’t trust that the government would use it well. I freaking love Grandpa. And agree. Grandpa is the voice of wisdom and gets some wonderful monologues about money and greed and of course says the title of the show in one of these so everyone in the audience drinks.
There is some surreal randomness even above the randomness of all the family members’ antics. Elizabeth Ashley appears only in Act 3 to play a former Russian royal who now works as a waitress and wants to cook the family dinner. I was like okay monster man. Very unnecessary but hey, you get to see Elizabeth Ashley onstage. Also Johanna Day plays an actress reading one of Penny’s scripts (I guess someone did read them) but she is a drunk and passes out. It’s also totally unnecessary but it’s worth it because she is still super drunk during the FBI raid, adding to that scene’s unbeatable amount of outrageousness.
YAKSCOK has a happy ending, of course, because it’s a comedy even though there are lots of snakes onstage. You kind of want to tell Alice to calm down as I’m pretty sure every single family has some Sycamore qualities, but you get why she’s anxious. Fortunately, she realizes she’s lucky to have such a loving family, despite its eccentricities. The pretty people get married and Essie keeps dancing and it’s all just a pile of smiles. The end.
The Visit at the National Theatre, Or This Old Broad is Crazy But She Ain’t Wrong
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is The Visit, which opens tonight and plays at the National Theatre (Olivier Theatre) until May 13.
Full confesh time: As soon as The Visit went on sale, I bought tickets to the first preview because I assumed it was the Kander & Ebb musical version that I never got to see on Broadway with Chita and I was like YESS I CAN FINALLY SEE THIS WEIRD AF SHOW THAT DID THE TONY AWARDS PERFORMANCE THAT MADE ME UNCOMFORTABLE! It is not the musical version. This is the latest adaptation of the classic 1956 German play, more faithful to the original than the musical (and the many other adaptations that have come before) and this time translated/written by Tony Kushner, if you can believe it. (“If I can believe it? Watch this – I believe it!”) The Visit, a classic play about humanity, revenge, and also the stain of capitalism (true), tells of the world’s richest lady, Claire Zachanassian, who returns to her poverty-stricken hometown and makes them an offer they should refuse but don’t. The questions it raises about morality and greed and wrath are the sort that stick with you and make you uneasy, a sign of effective theatre.
Although I have lots of problems with the third act and the overall success of the show, I enjoyed this production and recommend seeing it, if only for the strong star turns from the great Lesley Manville and Hugo Weaving (who I took a picture with at one of the Lord of the Rings premieres but it was before smartphones and I don’t know where that photo is dammit). Kushner’s adaptation updates the location of the action to New York state, namely the destitute town of Slurry, which is a terrible name (on purpose; the original German name was supposed to evoke manure). When the hot witch? seductive demon? sexy bionic elder lady Claire finally comes back for a visit (the visit) after leaving as a teen, the down-on-their-luck residents hope that she will be their savior. Maybe if she paid enough in taxes you wouldn’t have to rely on her feeling philanthropic! Claire indeed is willing to give the town lots of money, like the kind that starts with a ‘b’ and that no private citizen should have control of. This money would more than save the town; it would make every penniless resident rich. But there’s a condition, and it’s dark, which you guessed because she is a scary scary sexy lady (like the song from Crazy Ex Girlfriend): she will only give the money in exchange for what she considers ‘justice’. Her version of ‘justice’? The townspeople killing her ex-boyfriend Alfred. YEP.
So like, 40 maybe 50 years have passed since Claire and Alfred, who still lives in Slurry, had their little teenage romance, and despite 7 husbands and traveling all over the world and becoming the richest person on earth, Claire is still angry that Alfred broke up with her. Or so it seems at first. At first you’re like oh this bitch cray, no one in that town better think twice about telling her to shove her money. I mean you’re talking about MURDER. But despite initially laughing off her proposal and telling Alfred that they would never even consider it, the townspeople slowly start to realize how much their lives would change by sacrificing just one eensy person.
And as more details come out about their history, what Claire suffered through, and who exactly composes her entourage (this part straight f-ed me up), you understand Claire’s position better: Alfred didn’t just abandon her. What he did was pure evil. I completely get being furious about what he did for decades and wanting some kind of justice. But, murdering him isn’t justice. My biggest disappointment with this show is that at no point does anyone say that murdering a wrongdoer does not beget justice, and that enacting such revenge doesn’t help anyone. Every time someone said the word justice I thought to myself “you keep a-using that word. I don’t-a think you know what it means.” I had recently watched The Good Place finale, so the whole ‘he did a horrible deed 50 years ago and should be punished eternally for it’ thing was a stark contrast to that show’s message that everyone should at least have a chance at redemption. (I mean not that Alfred ever seemed interesting in apologizing for his actions, but I guess that would have changed things too much.)
The first act was quite gripping, despite a slow start due to some weird acting choices on the part of the townspeople (also in New York state there should not be southern accents, but that is the most common ‘American accent’ choice usually). Also in that first kind of rocky opening were some REALLY WEIRD lines about Jews? Like very very disturbing that would be okay if anything came of them or they were supposed to be important but it just felt like random slurs? I’m really surprised at Kushner here, who is a Jew, and what he was trying to achieve. I have noticed his other works having such weird anti-Jew lines almost seemingly for the hell of it, not doing anything with them to make it worthwhile (I wonder if he uses it as an easy way to show that certain characters are flawed/bad, not realizing how anti-Semitic London/UK/Europe is). It took me out of it for a bit as I tried to understand his purpose. Ugh I got Kushlash.
Then, the second act is truly superb, one of the best, most gripping pieces of theatre. It was only 45 minutes and every second of that was perfectly calibrated. As the townspeople grapple with their decision, the whole play felt like a slow creeping movement towards evil, almost like a secret of the ooze, and it’s reflected incredibly in the blocking, with excellent direction from Jeremy Herrin. If the first act’s dark comedy was a B, this second act’s riveting psychological thriller was an A+.
And then the third act was beyond disappointing. It didn’t effectively capitalize on the gripping psycho-drama proffered in Act II. So much happens that is indefensible from a dramaturg perspective: Why don’t Alfred’s wife and kids seem to care about what’s happening AT ALL? Why is Alfred letting the press take pictures of him and his family in his shop? Why is this townsperson pretending to stab Alfred for a photo – when the journalist asking for it has NO idea about the deal?? (That last one really bugs me to no end. Like wtaf.) That is nonsense. There’s also so much that needed to be cut: the entire car ride with Alfred’s family was a waste of time, as was the horrible annoying TV personalities doing their bits at the town meeting, and then, to add insult to injury, repeating everything because their feeds weren’t working or something. This was some real nonsense that almost had me screaming.
So this first preview was four hours (although it never really felt long at all; it was well paced aside from some bullshit in the third act). A few days later, I saw on the NT website that the run time had been amended to 3 hours 50 minutes, and then a few days later to 3 hours 40 minutes, and now it’s at 3 hours 30 minutes. I hope that’s all due to work on the third act, because if ONE SECOND of the second act was touched, that’s a real tragedy. (Apparently the Broadway musical version was 95 minutes, which is hilarious to me. What did Chita just show up and sing one song and then they all do a murder and you’re out before you even have to pee? I peed 5 times during this event.)
But the most disappointing thing (well the TV reporters bit was pretty terrible) was that there is no discussion of forgiveness, or redemption, or how by considering this offer the townspeople are just as bad or worse as teenage Alfred. While the play is overall pretty good, always interesting, and almost never boring, it’s still such a wasted opportunity for exploring these themes. There is so much fodder for how to deal with remorse and past sins as well as anger and desire for vengeance, and of course what actual justice is, but any real contemplation of all this happens offstage.
INFORMATION
There are two intervals so regardless of what the ever-changing run time is, that’s always good.
My favorite place to sit in the Olivier is the front row of the circle. I usually do stalls but the Olivier is such an enormous cavern of a place that you get a better view from the circle. Also the inner aisles are pretty central. Best of all, it’s formed so you only see the stage and none of the people in the stalls on their phones. Also people don’t seem to know that there are bathrooms on either side of the circle, inside the doors, and there are usually okay lines. What does have a line is the new water dispenser on the bar, which is a nice idea but now since there’s only one instead of a few pitchers that line is longer than the bar’s!
My best tip for the NT as always is to bring your small bag, not a big one. They make you check purses and backpacks &c that are bigger than like a piece of paper.
1 Comment
So true Randi and how it resonance not only the Jewish population but all of us.
Bravo another wonderful review