“Why do they hate us?” The question is posed by a Holocaust survivor in his eighties to his grandson towards the end of Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic, and I doubt that there is a Jewish person, however privileged or secular in lifestyle, who has not asked it at some point. For me, it was while working as a hostess at a renowned high-end restaurant in Manhattan, where many of the patrons were Jews. I don’t recall how my heritage came up in conversation, but suddenly, a manager started acting palpably cooler towards me, and a waiter who had been flirtatious expressed astonishment that I was Jewish—and accused me of hiding this detail from him.
To be fair, the waiter may have been on to something. Where “passing” as white has been a tragic recourse only for a limited number of Black individuals confronted with the scourge of racism, Jews have, in more recent generations, had more options. Most notably, perhaps, we have been able to change our surnames—as my own grandparents did upon arriving in the United States in the 1950s, after evading the Nazis and enduring more prejudice, if less mortal danger, in post-war France.
Harmon’s brave, articulate, moving and necessary new play—directed in its world premiere production with robust wit and wrenching intimacy by David Cromer—is set in Paris, and informed by research the playwright, whose previous credits include Bad Jews and Significant Other, did in France shortly before Donald J. Trump was elected president in 2016. We meet the fictional Salomons, a family that doesn’t change its name and doesn’t want to leave its country. Over five generations, though—Prayer shifts between the periods of 1944-46 and 2016-2017—its members grapple with the unique ramifications of their religious and ethnic identity, as Harmon piercingly excavates the mix of fear and pride, alienation and communion central to the Jewish experience.
[Read David Finkle’s ★★★★☆ review here.]
The trope of the wandering Jew is applied meaningfully as the Salomons take various measures to avoid that fate. We first encounter Pierre, the elderly survivor mentioned earlier, as a fifteen-year-old whose mother and sisters have been slaughtered; when and he and his father, Lucien, are liberated by the Allies, they return to Paris, where Lucien’s parents have managed to remain hidden through the war, and where he hopes to revive the family business of selling pianos. Both Lucien and Pierre are visibly broken, though; Peyton Lusk is heartbreaking as the quiet, traumatized boy, as is Ari Brand as the widower trying to lift his only remaining child’s spirits.
Pierre will eventually inherit the business, and marry a Catholic woman, with whom he has two children. We meet Marcelle and Patrick in middle age; the latter, played by a dry Richard Topol, acts as a narrator of sorts, introducing his kin and putting their story into a larger historical context with acerbic commentary. It emerges that, like his father, Patrick has been driven to essentially bury his Jewishness, as much by his self-protective instincts as any lack of faith. “There are very few things worth dying for, and an old religion isn’t one of them,” he tells his sister.
Part of Harmon’s courage lies in his refusal to cast anti-Semitism purely in the politically fashionable mold—that is, as the exclusive realm of white nationalists for whom European Christians paved the way. There are references to the Crusades and France’s far-right National Front, and to the frightening implications of Trump’s election and the xenophobic voices that grew louder in its wake. But Marcelle’s husband, Charles, is an Algerian Jew whose parents fled that North African country, and who is now considering moving to Israel, having begun feeling unsafe in his adopted home—where his son, Daniel, has been physically assaulted since becoming more religious and wearing a yarmulke in public. The Charlie Hebdo shooting is mentioned, as are other murders inspired by profane distortions of another historically persecuted faith, Islam. Bigotry has no religious or political affiliation—an obvious truth, it once seemed, but one that bears emphasis in today’s polarized climate.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has so exacerbated tensions between Muslims and Jews is addressed in one of Prayer‘s most pungent and funniest scenes, in which Charles and Marcelle’s daughter, Elodie—a whipsmart, superficially misanthropic 28-year-old still living fractiously with her parents and brother, played by a razor-sharp, riotous Francis Benhamou—is chatting with her American cousin, a visiting college student who refers to herself as being “of Jewish extraction.” In a rambling, brilliant screed that rails against everything from the hypocrisy of Americans bemoaning other nations’ bloody practices to the idiocy of social media pundits, Elodie notes that criticism of Israel’s more controversial actions far outweighs those of other, often larger countries with records of civil abuse. Molly, who until this point has often seemed comical in her coddled ingenuousness, counters that she “could protest human rights violations in Myanmar or Iran or wherever, but my government’s not sending billions of dollars to those countries.”
Such conundrums are tackled throughout Prayer with a combination of intelligence, balance and accessibility that few writers of Harmon’s generation could pull off, and an emotional resonance that Cromer and his superb cast fully serve. Betsy Aidem delivers a bracing, witty, deeply compassionate performance as Marcelle, an accomplished woman whose devotion to her family and work can make her seem brusque and controlling; Jeff Seymour’s Charles proves a worthy partner, fielding the often frustrating behavior of his wife and children as well as his own worries with good humor and great decency. Yair Ben-Dor is immensely endearing as their son, Daniel, who is clearly drawn to Molly; the spark between the (distant) cousins is a source of comedy, though their discussions cover sobering territory, with Molly Ranson deftly revealing a budding curiosity and sense of purpose behind Molly’s amusing and occasionally irritating naivete.
Pierre Epstein, Nancy Robinette and Kenneth Tigar all bring shattering authenticity to the roles of, respectively, the elder Pierre and his grandparents. Following the latter, we witness their joyous relief in being reunited with young Pierre and his father, their utter horror upon learning what has happened to other family members and the miraculous fortitude with which they press on. “We are still here,” Elodie marvels of her tribe some 70 years later, chiming in to answer Pierre’s query about hate. “How? Are we all Houdinis?” There is indeed something magical about the resilience Harmon documents here, and in the end, Prayer‘s defiant optimism may make you feel, history’s harrowing examples notwithstanding, just a little more generous towards humanity in general.
Prayer for the French Republic opened February 1, 2022, at City Center Stage I and runs through March 27. Tickets and information: manhattantheatreclub.com
