Mark Marcante as Abraham so overdid excitement that you feared he would have a heart attack. His New York accent was better suited to comedic moments later in the play, such as when he and Isaac (David Scott) arrive on Mount Moriah and Abraham announces: "Now you die." Meanwhile, his wife Sarah (Raquel Yossiffon) reads a recipe for chicken soup, concluding: "Expect compliments from all."
Yossiffon had looks, a tender touch, and oomph. What she lacked were many of her lines - although she always charmed.
Anthony Craig as Isaac's African-American brother Ishmael (ancestor to the Arabs) tells his brother that his father "shouldn't have cast me off. People don't get over these things."
And there you have the Palestinian problem in a nutshell, as well as the politics of the play.
Michael Keyloun as Jacob/Theodore Herzl reeked of charm and used his considerable talent to make the outrageous believable.
The ensemble had much singing, dancing, whooshing, and choo-chooing to do. Its most effective image was eighteen hands forming the alimentary peristalsis of Jonah's whale. The vomiting was especially amusing.
Included, besides those named above, were Pietro Gonzalez, Jocelyn S. Druyan, Reyn Williams, Katherine Adamenko, and Laurie Wickins.
One expected more of the OBIE-winning director/designer than the indiscriminate mixing of such objects as imaginary playing cards, a toy rifle, and a genuine cap pistol. Typical was the golden calf Moses trashed. Trash to begin with, its further destruction was redundant.
One had to rate the sound and lights as unacceptable on the basis of unrecognizable projections on a thrown-together paneled backdrop; and a cracked speaker that ruined the lovely sounds of Cantor Ilan Mamber's Hebrew folk songs.
The costumes (Irene Nolan) were pulled from a mixed bag of shawls, jeans, tuxedo pants, turtlenecks, and gold lamé. When one actress lamented "My people are dying," the only thing that told us she was Muslim, not Jewish, was the Arab scarf she wore. Would that such confusions were possible in Israel! - possibly the author's point.
Twenty-five years ago next October, Arthur Sainer, in the Village Voice, wrote the best dramatic review I ever got. I wanted to toss back the bouquets. I wish they could be leafier and better perfumed. Still, there were rewards.
Copyright 1999 Marshall Yaeger