Within the two years since I first noticed Joshua Harmon’s bold, busy play about antisemitism, wherein 5 generations of a single French household in two totally different eras worry for his or her security, the topic has grow to be much more well timed, with a stunning rise in antisemitism in America. The incidents documented by the Anti-Defamation League — some 3,700 in 2022 alone (some 5 occasions larger than a decade in the past) — have escalated exponentially for the reason that Hamas bloodbath and kidnapping of Israelis on October 7, 2023
Throughout the previous two years, there has additionally been an increase in New York productions that depict antisemitism. “Concord” is presently enjoying proper down the block on 47th Avenue from MTC’s Samuel Friedman Theater, the place “Prayer for the French Republic” has simply opened. Broadway additionally noticed latest runs of “Only for Us,” “Parade,” and “Leopoldstadt,” whereas there have been productions Off or Off-Off Broadway of “Amid Falling Partitions,” “King of the Jews,” “The Physician,” “Keep in mind This: The Lesson of Jan Karski“, “Witness,” “Otto Frank,”
The larger urgency of the problems within the play most likely explains why, seeing it now on Broadway, it feels much more stirring, enhanced by some robust performers, 5 of whom had been additionally standouts within the authentic eleven-member solid Off-Broadway. However “Prayer for the French Republic” additionally suffers from comparability with a number of the different latest productions. As well-constructed as lots of the scenes are, there’s an excessive amount of occurring; an excessive amount of the playwright is attempting to do. In its three hour-plus working time, together with two intermissions, the play strives to make an epic assertion, whereas nonetheless making room for Harmon’s signature bratty comedy.
Marcelle (Betsy Aidem) is a member of the Salomon household, Jews who’ve lived in France for a thousand years. These of her relations who survived the Holocaust, stayed. Her father Pierre (Richard Masur), in his eighties, is the fifth era of Salomons who’ve owned piano shops all through France, a enterprise that the household started in 1855 and that Pierre rebuilt after the struggle
But, in 2016, Marcelle’s 26-year-old son, Daniel (Aria Shahghasemia) returns dwelling with a bloodied face. A number of hooligans beat him up as a result of he was sporting a kippah, a skullcap worn by non secular Jews. Marcelle, who grew up secular, has been attempting to get her son to cowl up his newfound devotion by taking it off when he’s exterior, or at the least sporting a baseball cap over it. His father Charles Benhamou (Nael Nacer), quickly comes up with a extra drastic resolution: They need to transfer to Israel. The incident is simply the most recent, in spite of everything, in a darkening image for Jews in France on the time — the capturing at Charlie
Hebdo, the newspaper, the killing of 4 Jews in a kosher grocery store in Paris “who had been simply purchasing for groceries,” the doable election of right-wing politician Marine Le Pen as president of France.
Charles’s Benhamou ancestors had lived in Spain till all Jews had been kicked out in 1492; the Benhamous then lived for a whole bunch of years in Algeria, earlier than being pressured to depart within the 1960’s. He understands why Jews have survived by way of hundreds of years of hatred: “It’s the suitcase, or the coffin.”
That is the core story, and it’s a compelling one. Nevertheless it’s crisscrossed with scenes and subplots that includes eight extra characters, most of whom serve overtly dramaturgical and thematic capabilities.
Anthony Edwards portrays Patrick, Marcelle’s brother, who serves because the narrator. He’s resolutely secular. The offspring (like Marcelle) of a blended marriage, he doesn’t sound like he considers himself Jewish in any respect, and in any case doesn’t approve of the Benhamou household’s plan to depart France, pondering they’re overreacting. But he recounts a sequence of ugly atrocities dedicated towards French Jews within the Center Ages (Apparently, Patrick’s monologue now not brings up the 2018 bloodbath by a white supremacist of the worshippers within the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, as he did Off-Broadway.) Making this defiantly secular character obsessive about antisemitism is just not essentially a flaw in characterization – Harmon could possibly be making the purpose that it’s exactly due to Patrick’s obsession with the main points of Jew-hatred that the character desires to maintain that a part of his id hidden, even from himself.
Molly Ranson portrays Molly, an American faculty scholar on her junior yr overseas who’s enchanted by the romance of France — the form of woke and clueless secular American Jew that Harmon has confirmed adept in skewering (in such performs as Unhealthy Jews.) Molly is a distant cousin of the Salomon household; her first go to with Marcelle and her household occurs to happen on the day that the antisemites have bloodied Daniel, and she or he silently witnesses the offended argument that ensues between Daniel and his mom, which Charles makes an attempt to finish by begging “please….let’s have dinner.” After an extended pause, Molly pipes up: “I don’t know if I discussed, I’m a vegetarian?” Viewers laughter. Finish of scene.
Molly is the outsider to whom Marcelle and her household clarify issues the playwright desires the viewers to know. She winds up injecting a little bit romantic comedy into the play; she and Daniel fall for an additional, though the courtship is just not a serious focus.
She additionally expresses her view that Israel is just not a spot to which the Benhamou household ought to transfer: “I’m undecided what the phrase is in French, perhaps it’s the identical: apartheid?” This provokes a sarcastic rebuke from Daniel’s sister, Elodie Benhamou (portrayed by actress named coincidentally Francis Benhamou) – and a chance within the change between the 2 younger girls to put out the final debate over Israel and the Palestinians. Elodie represents one other typical fixture in a Harmon comedy (greatest represented by {the teenager} Charlie in Admissions.) — the garrulous character given to lengthy arias which are comedian of their breathlessness, however concurrently supposed as severe perception.
Equally, the relations categorical their severe disagreements once in a while by shouting at each other — typically comically, typically angrily, usually indecipherably. This can be a household that spends its Passover Seder as Patrick places it, “one-quarter consuming, three quarters arguing.” Director David Cromer is understood for his delicate contact, in such works as Our City Off-Broadway and Broadway’s Tony-winning musical, The Band’s Go to, however is unable to get these scenes underneath management — which, to be honest, are the exceptions in a manufacturing with appearing of usually distinctive readability.
The remaining characters are members of the Salomon household dwelling in France throughout World Struggle II. In scenes from 1944 to 1946 that alternate with those from 2016 and 2017, we see Patrick and Marcelle’s great-grandparents Adolphe and Irma (Daniel Oreskes and Nancy Robinette) of their dwelling in Paris, the place they had been miraculously left alone in the course of the struggle, however knew sufficient by no means to enterprise out into the streets, and at all times to maintain the home windows coated. They wait and look forward to phrase of the relations who weren’t fortunate. Lastly their son Lucien (Ari Model) comes again, together with Lucien’s son, 15-year-old Pierre (Ethan Haberfield), each having survived Auschwitz.
I discovered these Holocaust-era scenes largely inert and pointless after I first noticed “Prayer for the French Republic” Off-Broadway, and, together with the weirdly sentimental and contrived ending, led me to see the play as a piece in progress – a worthwhile play in want of labor. However little or no has modified in its Broadway switch. Regardless of some superbly carried out moments by Oreskes and Robinette, these scenes now appear much more of a mistake, particularly in mild of what’s been rendered on different phases. The elder Pierre, now performed briefly however masterfully by Masur, may have provided all of the historic context that the play wanted.
“Three fourths of the French Jews survived,” the aged Pierre factors out close to the tip. “You understand what a excessive proportion that’s? It was a lot worse in Poland, in Germany, Czechoslovakia, Greece. France is the among the best.” And but right here he was, speaking to his descendants, who felt the necessity to escape the nation.
Prayer for the French Republic
MTC’s Samuel J. Friedman Theater by way of February 18
Working time: Three hours and quarter-hour together with two intermissions.
Tickets: $94-$298
Written by Joshua Harmon
Directed by David Cromer
Scenic Design by Takeshi Kata; Costume Design by Sarah Laux; Lighting Design by Amith Chandrashaker; Sound Design by Daniel Kluger; Hair Design by J. Jared Janas; Make-Up Design by J. Jared Janas
Forged: Betsy Aidem as Marcelle Salomon Benhamou, Francis Benhamou as Elodie Benhamou, Ari Model as Lucien Salomon, Anthony Edwards as Patrick Salomon, Ethan Haberfield as Younger Pierre Salomon, Richard Masur as Pierre Salomon, Nael Nacer as Charles Benhamou, Daniel Oreskes as Adolph Salomon, Molly Ranson as Molly, Nancy Robinette as Irma Salomon, Aria Shahghasemi as Daniel Benhamou.
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