When I got the invite to A HAPPY END, a play by Iddo Netanyaho, a physician and playwright who happens to be the Israeli Prime Minister’s brother, I accepted immediately. I tend to gravitate toward Holocaust themed films, plays and TV shows. In 2015, I feel it is moe important than ever to be reminded what happened, as Anti-Semitism is taking hold in places not so very far away, like in Paris and other parts of Europe.
The play is appearing at the Abingdon Theatre, in an off-Broadway run through March, and is about a Jewish family in Berlin faced with the decision to leave Nazi Germany before anti-Semitism got dangerous. The signs were all there that it was pertinent to leave. The story follows acclaimed Jewish physicist Mark Erdmann, head of the atomic lab at the University of Berlin, and his wife Leah through the painful decision of whether or not to leave Germany following the elections of 1932 that changed Germany forever. While the world as they knew it started to break down around them, they chose to deny their tragic reality and hold onto the Germany they loved. He was at the peak of his career; she was infatuated with Berlin as a cultural epicenter and the opportunities she thought were possible and only available to her by staying in Germany. They could not bear the thought of being pushed out. Despite being told by their non-Jewish colleagues and friends to leave and accept a teaching post in America that would remove them from danger, they don’t budge. The ending, natually, is tragic, and the title of the play ironic and full of contradictions.
The play is even more effective as a result of video and music intertwined between scenes. Scenes of Germany in the 1930’s pre and post threat, and it eerily and realistically adds to the feeling of eminent danger that the family is so adamant of facing. Knowing the inevitable outcome I hoped so much for their safety but knew deep inside their stubbornness and denial would get in in the way of their fates. I am sure it was the same for so many of the six million who perished senselessly during those unfathomable times.
A HAPPY END features Carmit Levité (The Chekhov Dreams, NYIT Award nominee), Phil Gillen (Theatreworks’ Charlotte’s Web, Drunk Shakespeare), and Curzon Dobell (Soho Rep’s Peninsula, Levittown), Allison Siko (Paper Mill Playhouse’s Gypsy, Kathleen Stabler on “Law & Order: SVU”), Joel Ripka (Machinal, INTAR’s American Jornalero) and Lori Gardner (My Deah, Fix Me, Jesus). The cast is wonderful, particularly Levité, an actress who hails from South Africa and Israel, as a Jewish female torn between her heart and reality, and Dobell as her devoted, brilliant husband who lets his wife guide their difficult decision.
I feel lucky to have seen this important play and highly recommend it. Plays like this must be seen. Book your tickets here and make this seeing A HAPPY END a priority.
Disclosure: I was provided with tickets to facilitate this review but all opinions are my own.
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