Susan Granger’s review of “If I Forget” (Roundabout’s Laura Pels Theatre)
Steven Levenson (“Dear Evan Hanson”) has written one of this year’s most provocative Off-Broadway plays.
This Jewish-American family drama takes place in an upper-middle class neighborhood of Washington, D.C., at the turn of the last century – 2000-2001 – in the midst of political turmoil, specifically the breakdown of the Israel-Palestine peace process.
As the three adult Fischer offspring gather to celebrate the 75th birthday of their recently widowed father, Lou (Larry Bryggman), it becomes obvious that he can no longer live alone in the family home.
Although he’s up for academic tenure, scholarly son Michael (Jeremy Shamos) is about to publish a highly controversial book, “Forgetting the Holocaust,” asserting that the Holocaust obsession that haunts the minds of American Jews has made contemporary Judaism “a religion and a culture of, frankly, death and death worship.”
As a W.W. II veteran who helped liberate Dachau, Lou is deeply offended. “For you, history is an abstraction,” he says. “But for us, the ones who survived this century, this long, long century, there are no abstractions anymore.”
Adding to their angst, Michael and his Gentile wife Ellen (Tasha Lawrence) have a troubled teenage daughter, Abby, currently traveling in Jerusalem on a Birthright trip to Israel.
Like most families, each sibling has his/her memories and often differing versions of family history. Michael’s older sister, caustic Holly (Kate Walsh from TV’s “Private Practice”), is married to Howard (Gary Wilmes), a successful lawyer/stepfather to her teenage son Joey (Seth).
The youngest, unmarried Sharon (Maria Dizzia from TV’s “Orange Is the New Black”), has been their father’s primary care-giver and is bonding with the Guatemalan family who run a bodega in a building the family owns.
Superbly cast and sensitively staged by director Daniel Sullivan, it evokes other intense family sagas, like “August: Osage County” and “The Humans.” Kudos to Derek McLane for his multi-level set, Jess Goldstein for costumes, Kenneth Posner for lighting and Dan Moses Schreier for original music & sound design.
The world premiere of “If I Forget” is at the Laura Pels Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre.
Given the current rise of anti-Semitism, “If I Forget” could not be timelier.