If I Forget
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
The Fountain Theatre
Thru September 9
RECOMMENDED
Plays about fractious families may be common but toss politics and the Holocaust into the mix and you’ll have an intriguing drama.
Steven Levenson’s If I Forget takes place in an upper middle-class home in Washington DC, circa the year 2000. The central character, Michael Fischer (Leo Marks), is a professor of Jewish studies who’s written a book blasting prevailing Jewish attitudes towards the Holocaust. In the book, he suggests that historically enshrined memories of this monstrous event — perhaps best connoted by the ubiquitous slogan “Never Forget!” — are being exploited and abused by self-interested parties. It is Michael’s belief that Jews, both as individuals and collectively, would be better served if they recognized this exploitation and moved on. In his mind, this Holocaust obsession has clouded perspectives and pushed to the background other vital issues of concern, ranging from current genocide in Rwanda to glaring injustices here at home. He’s also galled by what’s happening in Israel; the play takes place shortly after the Israeli-Palestinian talks at Camp David have collapsed, and Michael is in the camp of those who believe that Israel hasn’t acted in good faith.
Michael’s book is yet unpublished, but he’d sent a copy to his dad (Matt Gottlieb), who shared it with Michael’s younger sister Sharon (Sami Klein) who passed it along to her lover at that time, a local rabbi. Somehow word spreads, and public indignation grows. Soon Michael’s future as a tenured professor is imperiled. The financial resources he needs to pay the mortgage on his new home, care for his psychologically ailing daughter Abby, and contribute to the care of his elderly Dad, may vanish. More immediate is the consternation his newly revealed opinions provoke among his family, who are outraged by what they view as a betrayal of his people. Perhaps most disturbed is his father, who as an American GI was present at the liberation of inmates at Dachau, and as such bore personal witness to the Holocaust in all its human horror.
But Michael’s predicament is but a secondary aspect of this engaging play. Levenson wrote it because he wanted to explore what it meant to be an American Jew at the turn of the 21st century. It’s a question and a quest as old as Judaism itself.
One measure of Levenson’s success is how skillfully he ensconces themes relating to Jewish history and heritage —the sacredness of memory, for example, and the importance of ritual in defining who we are —into a funny, poignant domestic comedy. Each character has his or her distinctive shtick. Sister Holly (Valerie Perri) is a spoiled Jewish matron with inflated ideas about her future as an interior designer. The equally self-absorbed Sharon is convinced that only she has properly cared for their parents; everyone else has shirked off. Also, she tends to babble like a clueless teen, though she’s in her late 30s and is carrying on with the married tenant who leases what was once the Fischer family’s store. Holly’s son, Joey (Jacob Zelonsky) is an odd youngster who sometimes appears intellectually limited and at other times seems as savvy as anyone. Holly’s deep-pocketed spouse Howard (Jerry Weil) has subversive secrets of his own. Patriarch Lou is struggling with growing infirmity, while Michael’s wife Ellen (Sile Bermingham) has her hands full just coping with her smug professorial spouse.
Directed by Jason Alexander at the Fountain Theatre, the current production entertains while conveying much of the playwright’s intent. The ensemble is strong and adept, and the pacing is swift. Humorous elements are played to the max. It’s easy to believe that some of the people in the story are folks you may have known sometime, somewhere. This is all to the good.
But several directorial choices have kept the production from being all that it might be. An eighth onstage character has been added, one not written into the script or present in the original production at the Roundabout Theater in New York. This, the program tells us, is the character of Abby, Michael and Ellen’s troubled daughter, who has rediscovered her Jewishness, to the dismay of her skeptical, cynical father. Abby’s gone so far as to develop Jerusalem Syndrome (this is in the script)— a genuine psychological ailment whose sufferers experience hallucinations that depict biblical happenings. In the production, the character is portrayed as a barefoot, spectral dancer (Caribay Franke) who appears between scenes and whose choreographed movements communicate extremes of joy and pain. Notwithstanding Franke’s expressive litheness, I found these sequences, which are underscored by melodramatic music, irritatingly heavy-handed and a breach in the flow of the story.
My second comment has to do with Sarah Kranin’s scenic design, which decks the rear of the stage with a potpourri of objects, so that it resembles the interior of someone’s dusty garage only entered on rare occasions. The actors use some (not all) of these set pieces for various scene changes, but the visual effect is distracting and not complementary. A more realistic set, or at least one less cluttered, would better serve the plot. I also didn’t understand why the actors remained on stage throughout, whether or not they were in the current scene. (no room backstage?) Levenson wrote this as a naturalistic piece, after all.
Finally, and most significantly, while the production on opening night never dragged, neither was it as powerful as it might be. The directorial emphasis has been on the comedy, too little on the heartbreak and vulnerability beneath. Hopefully, going forward that will change, as the actors finesse their work.
Near the end of the play, Michael and young Joey have a conversation about life after death. Joey relays what his mother has told him: that in Judaism, people live after death only if others remember them. But, he asks, “what happens when the last person who remembers can’t remember anymore?”
And Michael, who has challenged the value of memory, stumbles and stutters to answer. He doesn’t know what to say.
The Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave., Hollywood; Fri.-Sat., Mon., 8 pm, Sun., 2 pm, dark July 25, Aug. 13-14, Sept. 5; thru Sept. 9. www.FountainTheatre.com. Running time: two hours and 45 minutes, with an intermission.
