Displaying items by tag: Emily Berman

“God’s will” is often invoked as a reason for suffering in Barbara Lebow’s 1984 A Shayna Maidel, now being revived in a powerfully acted and impressively designed production at Timeline Theatre. While this might provide comfort to those who suffer, it also provides cover for those who caused the suffering. This point is made in the play, but the focus is on what people do survive, not on the circumstances that compel them to have to fight for survival. Taking place in 1946, it is a powerful tribute to the resilience of those who lived through Hitler’s Final Solution. As one family realizes that their estrangement is based on more than just miles and struggles to once again become as whole as possible, their perspectives and memories go beyond the lists of the dead to show the personal impact of not only hate, but ignorance, both willful and not. As the Holocaust slips further into history, it is important to remind people of its toll on humanity, and how easy it was to stay on the sidelines, allowing “God’s will” to be done.

A Shayna Maidel begins the generation before the main events of the play, in a Polish village in 1876, where a child is being born in the midst of a Russian pogrom. Fires burn, screams fill the air, and horses’ hooves thunder. The baby, Mordechai, is born without a cry, but he survives. Flash forward to 1946, and Rose Weiss is roused from sleep by pounding on the door. It is her father, Mordechai Weiss, now a successful store manager in New York City, waking Rose with the news that her sister, Lusia, has survived the concentration camps and will be coming to stay with her in a few days. Rose, who has recently gotten a job and the apartment that she is being ordered to share, is not happy that she is being given no choice in the matter. She has no memory of Lusia and her mother, whom she and Mordechai left behind in Poland when they came to America when she was four. Though she feels guilty about being the sister who was able to grow up American, Rose is as American as Mordechai raised her to be. She was able to ride out the Depression without pain and, though she has forced herself to watch newsreels of Nazi atrocities, Mordechai has isolated her from news of the family and her sympathy is from a distance. Lusia’s arrival brings it home.

Emily Berman’s haunted Lusia captures the steely resolve that kept her from giving up and keeps her looking for her husband when the search seems hopeless. Her careful movements and speech conceal the accumulation of loss and suffering, as well as the seething fury, that she cannot leave behind. As her sister Rose, Bri Sudia embodies the more mundane struggles she faces—working and creating her own life and identity despite her father’s objections—she is radiant, powerful and compassionate, despite her ignorance of the world she escaped. Initially resentful of having to take in her lost sister, Rose becomes an ally and friend as the bonds of blood and memory emerge. As the patriarch Mordechai, Charles Stransky fully realizes the imperious anger that both daughters remember, and the pride that reveals his love for them, but also played a role in their estrangement, a fact that he forces himself to ignore. Carin Silkaitis plays Mama with a warmth and pragmatism that reflects the character’s own strength in facing hardships. Weaving through Lusia’s memories are her husband Duvid and her best friend Hanna. We see Alex Stein’s Duvid go from cocky teenager, to proud husband worried about protecting the future of his family while still retaining his brash charm. As Hanna, Sarah Wisterman is bubbly and gregarious, hopeful and defiant in the face Nazi atrocities.

Director Vanessa Stalling has assembled a perfect cast and understands the importance of remembering the events that tear apart the Weiss family in Lebow’s play, though some flashbacks prove problematic, lending an elegiac quality that deprives the play of its contemporary relevance. Still, the moments that provide a reason to remember are powerfully rendered—the comparison of lists of the lost, the litany of causes for Lusia’s abandonment in Poland, the hope that runs through the tragedy, not as a weak last gasp, but as a powerful choice. It is this hope that makes the production worth checking out, even though the script sometimes threatens to relegate the threats faced by the Weiss family to the past, rather than reminding us that they still exist. Stalling’s design team finds the balance between the visceral and the mundane. The note-perfect set by Collette Pollard and props by Hillarie M. Shockley, with their cheery colors and all the luxuries that a 1946 walk-up might contain, ensure that the realistic story stays connected to the real stories it represents. Costume designer Samantha C. Jones likewise accents the reality of the time, from the Rose’s middle-class chic, to Mama’s peasant vibrance, to Lusia’s evolving wardrobe, from drab Red Cross issued dress to the relative elegance of the flower prints that echo her sister’s own clothes. Lighting designer Rachel K. Levy shifts her palette between the warm glow of the apartment and memories of childhood to the harsh saturated colors that define the realities of oppression. Sound designer and composer Jeffrey Levin creates a rich aural tapestry, with music ranging from klezmer to period pop, the music of the present and memories, and the terrifying sounds of violent onslaught.

It is important that the world never forget the Holocaust. A Shayna Maidel brings its memory to life, but it does not go far enough in showing us why it is important, nor placing blame where it belongs. It becomes too easy to shift the blame to Mordechai, with his imperious pride, rather than a world that turned away. This has nothing to do with Vanessa Stalling’s meticulous and impassioned Timeline Theatre production, which is a devastating reminder of events that are growing distant enough that their lessons are being daily—and sometimes deliberately—forgotten. Emily Berman’s Lusia embodies the hope and strength required to survive crushing loss and abandonment, while Bri Sudia’s Rose shows the genuine value of empathy. As Mordechai, Charles Stransky finds the compassion behind his character’s overbearing demeanor, and the remainder of the ensemble show the tragedy of what was lost in the face of Nazi atrocities and the world’s wavering response. A Shayna Maidel, the play, misses opportunities to show the ongoing impact of ignoring ethnic cleansing and genocide—connections made, but not pursued. However, the members of Lebow’s fictional Weiss family and their journeys provide many indelible moments of recognition, recrimination, love and loss.

A Shayna Maidel runs through November 4 at Timeline Theatre Company, 615 W. Wellington, Chicago. Performances take place Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7:30 pm, Fridays at 8 pm, Saturdays at 4 pm and 8 pm, and Sundays at 2 pm. Tickets are available at timelinetheatre.com or by calling the box office at (773)281-8463 x 6.

*Extended through December 2nd

If you haven't seen the film version of “The Bridges of Madison County” starring Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood, do not fear - the musical adaptation for the stage is full of beautiful songs and choreography that make this production a whole different animal than the 1995 movie and 1992 novel it was based. 

The story is simple, and universal. What to do when your life has not turned out the way you dreamed and true love steps in to give you another chance? Will you take a chance on Love? 

In "Bridges" we meet Francesca, an Italian war bride who married the first, kind GI she met after the war and came to America leaving everything familiar behind her to start a new life. While her husband and children are away at the state fair in Indianapolis for the weekend, fate brings true love knocking right on her front door in the form of a handsome and single National Geographic photographer, Robert Kincaid, who is on assignment in the area photographing the seven beautiful bridges of Madison County. 

After directions, that turns into a guided tour of the seventh bridge, followed by a few drinks and the sharing of deep personal stories, this compatible coupling quickly heats up into a life changing affair.

Francesca Johnson, played by the beautiful Kathy Voytko, reminds me a lot of a young Patti Lupone. Voytko, who has appeared in numerous Broadway productions, has a strong and lovely voice with a lovely Italian accent and very expressive face which reflects her growing attraction to Kincaid with every glance or bat of her large brown eyes. 

Kincaid, played by actor Nathaniel Stampley, comes alive on stage with a masculine warmth and grounded sensuality which make both Francesca and the audience feel she is infinitely safe within his embrace. We quickly realize that this is no one night stand nor even a chance encounter but all of destiny itself intervening to make these two lives powerfully intersect, if only for the weekend. 

Stampley and Voytco's passionate and unexpected love affair is well-supported with some comic relief by the actors who play her husband, kids and friends. Bart Shatto plays Bud while Brooke MacDougal plays the couple's young daughter Carolyn and Tanner Hake is their teen aged son Michael. Francesca's' supportive best friend, her closest neighbor out in farm country, is wonderfully played by Wydetta Carter. Carter also has a great Jazz voice and sings a very funny song about her envy of the magical love affair unfolding just across the fields from her perch in the front window of her country home. 

Jeffrey D. Kmiec's set design is very open, changing rapidly from the bridge location back to the kitchen and gives one the feeling that the ageless beauty of the bridges of Madison County represent a type of true love that is only found in dreams come true and that the small house in which Francesca and her family live is actually more of an astral 18 year-long "rest stop" -  that the travel loving and exotic Francesca is fundamentally out of place here.

I loved the song, "Before and After You" passionately and exquisitely sung by both Voytko and Stampley. The song perfectly describes how true love changes one's life and perceptions completely, making one realize in an instant just how much has been missing from their lives before they met and also how much their future lives will be forever indelibly stamped by the experience of this miraculous encounter and gift from fate. 

During their brief, but instantaneous, courtship over Francesca's kitchen table, Robert Kincaid, who is a devout loner and world traveler, tells her he feels disconnected from the world. In a flashback type setting, his ex-wife Marian, who is a hippy folk singer played by actress Emily Berman sings a very lovely song behind the flirting couple about her relationship with Kincaid and we see a whole other, liberal free loving side to the somber Kincaid character. The romantic, open-minded, artsy side of Kincaid has long since disappeared from his own consciousness as he jets sets around the globe never stopping for that "glass of iced tea or night cap of brandy" that will open the door to a new relationship thereby sidestepping over and over the vulnerability that a new relationship will inevitably bring. 

I highly recommend this beautifully cast and performed production of the stage musical. The relationships are very well played and the audience is allowed to see how the lover's interactions with each other bring to life all of the best aspects of their personalities, important living aspects and hopeful expectations of freedom and genuine loving excitement that have been long buried by the monotonous work and family demands of daily life. We also sit on pins and needles as the play brings its leading characters to an incredibly tough choice.

Voytco and Stampley's performances in the lead roles are deeply drawn, rich and compelling. Their chemistry feels real and palpable and their expansive individual artistry as singer/actors draws you in and makes the audience really care what choices they make and how their decisions will impact their mind-opening love affair, which is obviously a gift from heaven. 

“The Bridges of Madison County” is being performed at Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire through August 13th. For tickets and more show information visit www.marriotttheatre.com.