The search for identity, a study of the past and dealing with Mom and Dad are mainstay subjects of theater. Especially Jewish theater. "The People's Violin," which deals with all of them, handles them mostly well in the New Jewish Theatre's production that opened last night at the Clayton High School Little Theatre, where it will run through March 14.
It's a fierce drama by Charlie Varon, a San Francisco-based writer and actor. Sol Shankman (or Sol Shank or Sean Carver), failing in his career and his marriage almost simultaneously, looks for resurrection in those areas and many more at the age of 43. Varon performed all 18 roles in the original production, set in the mid-1990s, but someone (unfortunately uncredited) opened the play, and probably improved it, by adding three actors who do the other roles, and do them with style and grace.
Richard Strelinger scores as Sol/Sean, the same person regardless of name, and Richard Lewis is elegant as Sol's father, Sidney, and four of his contemporaries. Terry Meddows sparkles as eight different people, with the most power coming in his depictions of Lester Braun and Nathan Epps, whose stories are heart-rending. Ruth Heyman is all the women, but it's not easy to separate her performances as Sol's wife and mother, and as a patient of his father. She's more successful as a girl friend in his glory years as a director of television commercials. Lewis, with a commanding presence and a sense of entitlement about his life and career, also is impressive as Big Jack Carver.
Sol is trying to make a film about his father, a famous therapist, author of 19 books and a man noted for his work with Holocaust survivors, but the elder man will not cooperate, accusing his son the filmmaker of being a narcissist, a perfect diagnosis Sol will not accept. Strelinger is outstanding as an interviewer, trying to gain insight into a father he never really knew, and the more he learns, the more he realizes how much more he does not know, how much information was hidden from him. It's a well-polished performance.
Varon's drama falters in the second act, perhaps because he has introduced so much into the first act that he has raised our expectations too high for the second. Deanna Jent directs with excellent focus on Varon's script, and Dunsi Dai's simple set has a bare-bones quality that is adaptable to a variety of locations that have no distinguishing features. And since "The People's Violin," is about people, not places, that's enough.
In the end, Jewish identity, whether in Israel or in the United States, is not much different from any other religious, racial or ethnic identity. Meddows, playing an Israeli Army buddy of Sol's makes this clear in a discussion of courage and other Army things. Strelinger asks about the difference between the men.
"You're an American Jew," says Meddows, and ends the discussion. Good play, well-acted. Many things to think about, all of which transcend mere religion.
A production of the New Jewish Theatre at the Clayton High School Little Theatre, through March 14.
–Joe