Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on September 9, 2014

ST. PETERSBURG Sometimes people loathe each other because they're supposed to. But do they really know why?

"I don't understand why I wanted to kill you," one boy tells another after braining him with a baseball. "It's really bothering me."

Maybe it's worth it to try to understand. The Chosen, a life-affirming play opening a new season at American Stage in St. Petersburg, attempts to unearth the humanity behind the unsteady walls humans build around each other.

The play, which Aaron Posner and Chaim Potok adapted from Potok's 1967 novel, is hefty and meditative with a thread of sweetness that moves it along. The sumptuous set by Jerid Fox establishes the paradigm, twin offices on either side of the stage divided by the Brooklyn Bridge.

We're in Brooklyn in the 1940s. Two Jewish boys live five blocks apart, but their realities couldn't be more different. Reuven is Orthodox and dresses in current American styles. Danny is Hasidic and wears traditional garb of a black hat and suit with white threads at the waist.

The boys had never spoken before the baseball blunder, but discover they have things in common. They love studying the Talmud, the book of Jewish law. And Danny surprises Reuven with his interest in Freud and Hemingway, secret joys he keeps from his father.

Enter the complications. Danny's father (Joseph Parra) is an emotionally unavailable religious leader who expects the same life path for his son. Reuven's father (David Sitler) is an emotionally available scholar who wants his son to be a professor.

T. Scott Wooten, an American Stage veteran who has since moved to Washington, D.C., returned to St. Petersburg to direct The Chosen. It's a sort of companion piece to Potok and Posner's My Name is Asher Lev, which Wooten directed last year at American Stage.

The Chosen unfolds over a backdrop of World War II and the horrifying realizations of the Holocaust. It explores Zionism and fundamentalism but never feels overwhelming. And while the play's driving message of overcoming differences is almost too obvious, it stops just short of hitting us over the head.

The adults handle their roles forcefully with compassion. Dan Matisa plays an adult Reuven, tying the plot together with narration and wistfully watching his younger self grow. Parra and Sitler both feel powerful in different ways.

Continue reading here:

Review: 'The Chosen' teaches valuable lessons at American Stage

Category: Talmud
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