The actresses were fine, with Connie Winston a stand-out. Ironically, her exceptional charm and putty face, which captured the rhythms and sassiness of her African-American heritage, yielded the most authentic "Jewishness" of the piece.
The author/actress Ms. Ruskin has a face whose beauty is in its unabashed character; and her clean, poetic style seems as engraved as a visiting card. But her characters, skipping gamely over tragedies, lack the passion, love, shame, and dramatic intensity of the Lomans.
Louise Favier favored us with an unmistakable Irish lilt which was pretty to listen to but inappropriate to most of the characters she played. She found the few heart-wrenching moments in the play, such as a victim of Alzheimer's suddenly remembering, or a woman walking through the Brandenburg Gate after the Wall came down - related only obliquely to the theme.
The director moved things briskly over the creaking boards of the small stage, which was decorated with a lovely map prepared by Carl A. Carvalho. The country was probably supposed to be Ukraine, where the author's Gypsy-Jewish ancestors came from. But when you looked closely you saw an 18th Century map of Radnor County in the British Isles. This kind of truth-stretching was emblematic of the play: nice but not rigorous.
The actresses wore black culottes and moiré blouses. Clever uses were made of a blue fabric that became a scarf, the prow of a ship, ocean waves, and a shroud.
The lighting by Tech Monster was fine; and special music by John Purcell and Paul Handelman filled the background. The best sounds came from a truly inspired performance of whistling by Mark S. Kaufman which entertained the departing audience.
This play is a woman's play by an assimilated Jewish writer. The generations of women she treats blessed candles and cooked kosher; but mostly they were shunted behind temple veils. Their lack of knowledge may have hobbled the play and made its treatment of tradition feel sentimentally "researched" and third-hand.
The author's intention - to remind us not to forget - was noble.
Thus it's sad to suspect that this earnest, talented writer never
truly confronted the grit, courage, and tragedy that must have chased
her dispersed family through history.
Copyright 1999 Marshall Yaeger