Playwright/actor Liba Vaynberg has talent to spare, but it gets dissipated in this ambitious new work – subtitled “One Woman’s Creation Myth.” A co-commission from the Rattlestick Theater and the Congregation Beth Elohim seems to have triggered a case of overreach.
The role which Vaynberg – an appealing performer – has written for herself is fairly straightforward: that of a ditsy, self-deprecating librarian-slash-poet whose husband requests a gett (the traditional document formalizing a divorce, according to Jewish law). In riffing on this basic plotline, however, Vaynberg has layered in a more portentous schema. According to the program notes, she envisions the play as “an English expansion, translation, and adaptation of the opening verses of the Torah or Old Testament” – the Judeo-Christian origin story, in essence, boiled down into one woman’s weeklong experience of birth, love, disenchantment, new relationships, and finally a day of rest. In Vaynberg’s own summation, “The Gett is a tale of the dirty and the divine, drawing on everything from the Torah to bad sex.”
A grand scheme it may be, but it’s also a lot to pack onto the postage-stamp-sized stage of the Rattlestick Theater – further cluttered by set designer Micha Kachman’s puzzling decision to partition the space with rustling curtains made of dark-hued celluloid resembling unspooled cans of film stock.
Vaynberg starts off with an introductory monologue resembling a comedy-club spiel – a milieu she would excel in. Then it’s time to introduce the primal forces. Ida (pronounced Eeda) and the handsome if dicey Baal (Ben Edelman, a whiz with the magic tricks but often inaudible) meet cute in a stalled elevator. Perhaps the triteness of the trope is intentional?
Luis Vega provides the disembodied voice of a 911 operator who talks Ida through her claustrophobia; he later turns up – full-bodied and over the top – as “The Other Man,” spanning a lawyer, a lover, an old man, a rabbi. One further character pops up passim: Ida’s over-sharing psychiatrist mother (a toss-off role for the accomplished Jennifer Westfeldt).
Despite a generous helping of quirky observations (Ida notes, for instance, the “tacky electric menorah” to be found “shrugging” behind every apartment-lobby Christmas tree), the play has been burdened with more import than it’s prepared to bear. Director Daniella Topol has not managed to marry the playwright’s scholarly intent (not many playbills come equipped with a glossary) with an engaging, accessible story line. The result is neither here nor there: The Gett falls short of the Stoppardian sweep perhaps initially envisioned, while proving a bit of a dud on the romcom front.
Vaynberg is a playwright to watch, though. She’ll no doubt be back, with a lot more to say.
The Gett opened November 20 2022, at the Rattlestick Theater and runs through December 11. Tickets and information: rattlestick.org
