Theatre J: One Jewish Boy

"One Jewish Boy" is a U.S. Premiere of a play written by Stephen Laughton and originally produced in London at the Red Lion Theatre in 2018, it eventually moved to the  West End and played to great acclaim at the Trafalgar Studios.  The story is told with two actors, the first is Danny Gavigan whose greater DMV career I've been following since 2016 and his performance of Stanley Kowalski at Everyman Theater up in Baltimore.  The other role was played by Alanna Saunders who among other credits played Tiger Lily in NBC production of "Peter Pan Live!".  Great theatre, great background, great actors, what more could you ask for?  And it was indeed a great production.  I loved a lot about it.

I know, you're already sensing the "BUT" in the room... I'm not going to go there just yet.

Let me talk about all of the great stuff first!   The play is well written.  It's dialogue is often so natural that the humor catches you off guard and the pathos cuts like paper, sharp and unexpected.  The sequence of scenes flows back and forth in time with the two characters Jesse the well raised, player wannabe Jewish boy and Alex, the bi-racial devil may care with a righteous indignation against social injustice.  Their interactions twist and turn like a dervish between passion and love and passion and discord.  There was never a moment when the actors left me thinking the were Danny and Alanna.  From the moment the dialogue began, they were Jesse and Alex.  And as they moved forward and backward in time they were younger and older versions of themselves.  These were brilliant performances.  

The set was deceptively simple.  Indistinct cubes that could become various things.  A background of blank canvases ready to become whatever the scene required through the use of projected images.  The hallmark was a simple shelf running along the back wall of the room.  With every scene some article was left there, building of a sense of clutter, of history, of the progression of the life they were living together.  

Ok...first, a minor annoyance.  The actors were beautifully coached in a British accent--not posh, Jesse's was a mellow Northwest Highgate and Alex's more Southeast Greenwich immigrant.  I was impressed by the care taken in this aspect of the production; however, it didn't suite the audience.  Many lines were lost in the unfamiliarity during moments where the dialogue ran smartly over top each other.  Practically the discernible word was "fuck".  Leaving the theatre I was listen for commentary, and more than one comment alluded to not being able to understand what was going on all the time.  Again, midday matinee at the Edlavitch Jewish Center?  Median age 73.  But this is really nitpicking, compared my main complaint.

When a playwright goes to all of the trouble of pouring their genius, their art into a work, you want them to have something to say.  You hope that what they are going to tell you is going to give you something worth discovering.  Here you have two intelligent, curious, passionate people who's chance meeting leads them into a relationship.  The story starts with their divorce and then reveals all of the things that came before.  Poignantly, the final vignette is of their first "date".  

From that moment to the divorce they move in together, support one another in moments of indecision and career moves, and have a son.  There's a lot of love there.  Strangling it is the trauma.  Jesse's trauma erupts after a Jew bashing incident in which he is randomly beaten by a gang of black youths who specifically taunt him with Jewish slurs and Nazi references.  It is an experience he cannot move on from.  For Alex, it is the endemic misogyny and racism that has dogged her and beat her down for her entire life--even up to almost dying in childbirth because her description of her own pain was ignored by the white doctor and nurses.  In the end, the trauma wins the day. In spite of their passion, in spite of their son, they cannot break the toxic power of the trauma.  

Well, sigh...  Perhaps profoundly true, I found it also pathetically cynical.  I don't need sunshine and roses.  I know life can suck the fucking hope out of a rainbow.  I already know that.  I also know, that out of the darkest abyss, even the slightest spark of light, can refract the most dismal deluge to create a little rainbow again.  I wish Stephen Laughton with all of his brilliant talent also knew that.  I wish he had found a way to teach it to Jesse and Alex.