"Significant Other" by Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company at Highland Park Center Theatre

Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company is continuing their 25th anniversary season with the regional premiere of the 2017 Broadway play Significant Other. They last produced the work of NYC-based playwright Joshua Harmon several years ago with Bad Jews. Both plays are smart and sharp modern comedies with depth, but while Bad Jews was about cultural identity and family, Significant Other is about, well, finding a significant other. Society put so much pressure on us to be coupled, a pressure that our protagonist Jordan feels increasingly strongly as he watches his friends get married. MJTC's production is top notch and features a fantastic cast and elegant deceptively simple design. If you've not been to MJTC lately, this is a great time to check them out.

"West of Central" at Pillsbury House Theatre

A thrilling mystery in the classic noir style set in LA in the '60s sounds fun, but add in the fact that the smart and savvy detective is an African American woman and the play deals with issues of racism, segregation, riots, and changing neighborhoods, and you have a uniquely engaging and thought-provoking new play that only favorite #TCTheater playwright Christina Ham could write. West of Central was developed at the Playwright's Center, where I saw a reading two years ago as part of their Playlabs Festival. It was great then, and it's even better now after some tweaking and fully staged at Pillsbury House Theatre with precise design. Directed by Haley Finn (who also directed the PWC reading) and featuring a fantastic cast of local faves, West of Central is not just super cool and fun, but also has some interesting things to say about race relations then and now, as well as how we choose to live where we live and where we call home.

"'Night, Mother" by Dark and Stormy Productions at Grain Belt Warehouse

Friends, this is a tough one to watch. And I don't necessarily recommend it for everyone, especially people who might be triggered by the events of the play. Proceed with caution, because Marsha Norman's Pulitzer Prize-winning play is 90 minutes of the most frank discussion of suicide I've ever seen. Dark and Stormy's production, featuring the two-person dream team of Artistic Director Sara Marsh and #TCTheater favorite Sally Wingert, is beautifully done and powerfully affecting, almost painfully so. And they're doing all the right things - partnering with the Minnesota chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and including the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255) - so that hopefully this play brings more awareness of and discussion about suicide. And it's also some really intense, intimate, engaging theater. I expect nothing less from Dark and Stormy.

"Bad Jews" by Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company at Highland Park Center Theater

And now for something different. I attended MJTC's Bad Jews on the same night as Minnesota Theater Love's three bloggers Carly, Jules, and KRL, and we went out afterwards to discuss the show and theater in general. This is a show you'll want to talk about, and since the play is four people talking at and with each other, we decided to do a four-way... review of Bad Jews. What follows is our (mostly) unedited conversation.

Carly

So, Bad Jews, y'all!

KRL

Yes!

Jill

Talk about bloodthirsty! [note: I interrupted Game of Thrones to do this chat]

"Death Tax" at Pillsbury House Theatre

In a world with an aging baby boomer population and advances in medicine that see people living longer than ever before, the new play Death Tax is a timely look at the elderly and how we treat them. It's a fitting choice for Pillsbury House Theatre, which often produces timely and relevant work that connects to the larger community around them. In just five short scenes (nicely spelled out for us by playwright Lucas Hnath), with four actors typically in two-person scenes, and an extremely sparse set, this play brings up many issues around this topic but, like any good play, doesn't provide easy answers. Rather it provides much food for thought and conversation.

Tina and the daughter
(Regina Marie Williams and
Tracey Maloney, photo by Keri Pickett)

The playwright has written short introductions to the play and each scene, delivered by Regina Marie Williams. She tells us that this is a play with five scenes, and gives a brief description of the setting and characters, including her own, a Haitian nurse named Tina. The setting is a nursing home, where Tina cares for a wealthy woman named Maxine (Wendy Lehr, presiding over the first and last scenes and creating a full and complex character without ever leaving the bed). Maxine does not have a good relationship with her only daughter, to put it mildly, and suspects that she's paying Tina to speed her death along so that she can receive the full inheritance without paying the penalty of the new estate taxes in effect after the first of the year. Despite Tina’s reassurances, Maxine insists that this is what's happening, and offers Tina a great deal of money to keep her alive. Tina needs the money for a custody battle to bring her son back from Haiti, so she accepts, and enlists the help of her boss and ex Todd (Clarence Wethern). When Maxine’s daughter (Tracey Maloney) comes to visit, she tells a different story about her relationship with her mother. Things get complicated, Tina and Todd argue over the plan, but we never get to find out how it turned out. The last scene fast forwards twenty years; Maxine is still there, but her money has run out and the tables have turned.

Todd and Tina (Clarence Wethern
and Regina Marie Williams,
photo by Keri Pickett)

None of these characters is completely likeable, but all are relatable in some way. In particular, I found Tina to be an extremely sympathetic character, I wanted her to succeed in getting her son back and building a life for the two of them. I don't blame her for taking the money; if you desperately needed money for your family and someone offered you two hundred thousand dollars, would you turn it down? In this play, as too often in real life, money is power, and these characters either have money and power or they don't, and do questionable things to hold on to them or achieve them.

Tina cares for Maxine
(Regina Marie Williams and
Wendy Lehr, photo by Keri Pickett)

Director Hayley Finn sets a great tone and pace for her excellent cast, in a play with dialogue that sounds natural, the way real people talk. John Francis Bueche's set is completely bare and colorless, the theater was even a bit chilly so that it felt like a cold and sterile institution. Blank gray walls center on a bed with neutral bedding; the only other furniture on stage is a desk on the left with a few papers.

One of the uniquely great things about Pillsbury House is that their post-show discussions include a community group that deals directly with the issues discussed in the play. For this play they're partnering with ArtSage, which brings art to senior citizens (see also Alive & Kickin'). They're also presenting workshops about heath care directives and estate planning, things no one wants to think about in relation to themselves or their family, yet it's vital that we do so (see Pillsbury House's website for more info).

Death Tax is a smart, funny, thought-provoking, well-written and well-acted play. It continues at Pillsbury House Theatre in South Minneapolis through April 4. If you've never been there, it's definitely work checking them out to see what they're all about. In addition to producing great theater, Pillsbury House also serves as a community resource center (for more info on this and other theater venues around town, check out my Venues page).

"Rose" by Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company

Who can resist a one-woman show by Sally Wingert, one of the Twin Cities best actors? Add to that an intimate in-home setting and an epic story that encompasses the entire scope of Jewish history in the 20th Century, and you have an unforgettable evening of theater. Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company's production of Martin Sherman's play Rose, which is being performed in homes around the Cities, is inspirational, horrifying, funny, charming, disturbing, brutally honest, and entirely compelling. With just seven performances remaining and limited seating, you'll want to get your tickets now.

We meet Rose at the age of 80 in 1999 as she's sitting Shiva for a murdered girl (who that girl is comes out later). She's lived through many pivotal events in her life - growing up in a shtetl in Ukraine, moving to Warsaw and falling in love, being forced into the ghetto, hiding in the sewers after the uprising, boarding the fateful ship Exodus to the promised land only to be turned away, starting a new life in America, seeing her dream of a Jewish homeland realized for her family, only to watch helplessly as it's marred by violence that continues today. All of this is told with a personal perspective by this fictional woman in a way that makes these unthinkable events feel painfully real.

Sally Wingert as Rose (photo by Sarah Whiting)

Sally Wingert's performance as this remarkable woman is nothing less than transportive. She takes you right along with her as Rose tells stories from her past, from amusing to horrifying. The intimate setting adds to the feeling that you're sitting there with Rose, in her home, listening to her tell her stories. Sally is so real and natural in this role, making side comments to the audience who return knowing nods or laughs, getting short of breath and slowly sipping water, crunching on her daily pills with ice cream. It's another beautifully real performance by Sally Wingert.

Above all, this woman is a survivor. What is it about the human will to survive that makes a person live on when everything she's ever known - home, family, community, identity - is gone? But she did, as did many others. Rose carries her past with her into the future, even when her children and their children tell her to let it go, that it doesn't matter anymore, that this is the future. But Rose knows that the past informs who we are and must never be forgotten. Stories about the countless individual and collective atrocities committed during the Holocaust never stop being horrifying. And this play cuts right to the heart.

Rose continues in homes around the Twin Cities through August 24. Call the box office to reserve your space on this incredible journey.


This article also appears on Broadway World Minneapolis.

"Compulsion or the House Behind" by the Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company at the Hillcrest Center Theater

Compulsion or the House Behind tells the story of a man obsessed with Anne Frank's story, and making sure her story was heard throughout the world. I've been on a bit of an Anne Frank journey myself recently, although a little less obsessively. Last fall I saw Yellow Tree Theatre's moving production of The Diary of Anne Frank, based on the 1997 revision of the original 1955 play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (more on that a bit later). After seeing the play I was compelled to read the book, and was struck by what a normal teenager Anne was, despite the unthinkable situation she found herself in, as well as how she was able to keep her faith in the goodness of the universe. Earlier this year Nautilus Music-Theater presented a beautiful musical rendition of the diary, I Am Anne Frank, which adds another layer of richness to the story in a way that only music can. Compulsion or the House Behind by Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company adds yet another layer to the complicated story. Or rather, the story of how this simple diary became the legend that we know today.

Compulsion or the House Behind is a new play by Rinne Groff (the 2010 Public Theater production starred Mandy Patinkin, whom I adore) based on the life of Jewish American writer Meyer Levin. He traveled to Europe at the end of WWII and witnessed the liberation of the concentration camps, which began his obsession with getting the story of the Holocaust told. But he felt that the best person to tell the story was someone who had lived it; "from among themselves a teller must arise." When his wife gave him a French language translation of Anne Frank's diary, he knew he had found the teller. He worked with Anne's father, Otto Frank, to get the diary published in English in 1952, and wrote the New York Times review of the book. He had a verbal agreement with Frank and the publishers to write the stage adaptation, but his version was ultimately rejected in favor of the version written by Goodrich and Hackett. Their version downplayed Anne's Judaism and stressed the universality of the story, in order to make it more accessible to a wider audience (typical Broadway - compromise to sell more tickets). And it worked; the play won the Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize and became a huge hit that's still being produced today. Unfortunately Levin's version, which is more a story of the Jewish people and their survival, cannot be bought or produced due to an agreement he signed after a prolonged legal battle. But despite this settlement, Levin could never let Anne go; it became a lifelong obsession.

Mr. (Mark Benninghofen) and Mrs. (Bethany Ford) Silver

In the play, Meyer Levin is represented by Sid Silver, beautifully portrayed by Mark Benninghofen, capturing his early enthusiasm and naivete, through his later obsession, aggression, and delusion. Bethany Ford wonderfully creates two distinct characters (with the aid of her beautiful period costumes by Lisa Conley) - a young publisher named Miss Mermin, who is first Sid's supporter and then his adversary, and Sid's supportive French wife, who eventually demands that he drop the lawsuits and let go of Anne, for the sake of their family. Matt Rein ably plays all of the other characters - various lawyers and publishers in Sid's way (as one woman in the post-show discussion told him, "you were such an idiot!"), as well as Sid's friend in Israel who helped him (illegally) produce the play years later. With the multiple characters, there are a few winking comments of "you look familiar" or "you remind me of someone." An audience is often asked to accept one actor portraying several different characters, so I appreciate the acknowledgment of this suspension of disbelief.

Sid (Mark Benninghofen) and his beloved Anne

The tight three-person cast works well together (directed by Hayley Finn), but there's another very important person onstage. Anne herself is represented by a marionette and appears to both Sid and his wife, as if in a dream. She's adorable and incredibly expressive (designed by Chris Lutter-Gardella) and really is like a fourth actor in the play. Like all marionettes, she's so lifelike, and slightly creepy because of that. You can see the strings, and the person pulling the strings (very artfully done by Janaki Ranpura), but the puppet seems to have a life and feelings of its own. Particularly effective is the scene in which Anne shows up in the Silvers' bed and speaks to Mrs. Silver, in the voice of a sleeping Mr. Silver. It's a very clever device by the playwright to bring Anne into the story and let her voice be heard.

One of the great things about this play is that it raises questions but doesn't offer easy answers. No character is all bad or good. As an audience member, I definitely sympathized with Sid and wanted things to go his way, but also found myself frustrated at some of his actions. This is a complex portrait of a man whose good intentions to make an important story heard became an unhealthy obsession, believing he was the only person who could tell that story. But the truth is Anne's story didn't belong to him, it didn't belong to Goodrich and Hacket, it didn't even belong to Otto Frank. It's Anne's alone, which she left behind for each of us to experience in our own way. In the post-show discussion the day I attended, one audience member, who had worked with Holocaust survivors, very eloquently spoke about how the horror of the Holocaust is something that's difficult for those of us who haven't lived through it to comprehend. That level of cruelty is so far beyond what most of us can even imagine that it's difficult to wrap our minds around it. Maybe that's why Anne's story is so popular. She struggled to understand it herself, and she was living it. Anne gives us a tiny window into that horrific world, one simple story that we can grasp and put a face on the faceless and nameless millions.

It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.

Compulsion or the House Behind is playing for two more weekends at the Hillcrest Center on Ford Parkway in St. Paul. It's a fascinating, compelling, and thought-provoking look at the story behind a very familiar story.