Trayf
Reviewed by Deborah Klugman
Geffen Playhouse
Thru April 10
Recommended
The grass is always greener, they say.
In Trayf, Lindsay Joelle’s tender winning play about friendship, an 18-year-old Hasidic Jew longs to experience something of the outside world, while a non-Jewish acquaintance who works in a mid-Manhattan record store is drawn to a more rigid and circumscribed way of life.
The play is set in greater New York City in the early 90s. Friends from childhood, two Hasidic teenagers from Crown Heights, Zalmy (Ilan Eskenazi) and Shmuel (Ben Hirschhorn), drive a “mitzvah tank” — a small RV — around the city. They stop at various junctures to distribute proselytizing literature to secular Jews, in an attempt to persuade them to choose what strict Orthodox Jews perceive as the truer path.
There are few takers, so when Jonathan (Garrett Young) approaches to express interest, the open-hearted Zalmy welcomes him. Shmuel, on the other hand, is suspicious and unfriendly; though Jonathan’s father and paternal grandparents were Jewish (the latter were Holocaust victims), his mother was not, which means, by strict Jewish law, he’s not of the tribe.
But Zalmy argues otherwise; instead of rejecting Jonathan, he invites him to Shabbos dinner, and they develop a friendship. For Zalmy, Jonathan procures contraband tapes of secular music and a ticket to Fiddler on the Roof; in exchange, Zalmy instructs Jonathan on how to use tefillin and other basics of orthodox Jewish practice. Soon, despite Shmuel’s reservations, Jonathan has become a student of the Torah, matching the fervor of the most fervid in the Hasidic community.
This new relationship upsets not only Shmuel, who feels excluded, but Jonathan’s girlfriend Leah (Louise Jacobson), whose life is upended after Jonathan stops taking her to clubs and parties and implements Jewish practice in her home — turning out lights on Shabbos (including the bulb in the refrigerator), and throwing out dishes, all in pursuit of the purity of his new faith.
The play charts the dynamic among these four people, but the spine of the story is the friendship between Zalmy and Shmuel, whose mutual trust is challenged for the first time in their lives and whose certitude about the way of the world —that is, what their rebbe has taught them — is about to change. For Zalmy, this change will happen for sure, but even the more doctrinaire Shmuel will never see things quite the same.
Directed by Maggie Burrows on designer Tim MacKabee’s spare set, Joelle’s well-honed characters serve as the foundation for strong ensemble work. While each actor serves his or her role well, the heart of the production is Eskenazi’s Zalmy — a kind, intelligent and unassuming person, who ultimately puts heart and reason above misplaced ideological values or contorted loyalty.
Besides friendship in flux, Trayf speaks to the human need for relevance and recognition, both from a higher power and from other human beings, and it does this with humor and charm.
Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Avenue, Westwood; Tues.-Fri., 8 pm; Sat., 3 & 8 pm; Sun., 2 & 7 pm; thru April 10; geffenplayhouse.org. Running time: approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.
