Trayf - New Repertory Theatre

Photo Credit: Andrew Brilliant/Brilliant Pictures. Pictured: Ben Swimmer and David Picariello

Trayf – New Repertory Theatre

Review by James Wilkinson

This piece first appeared on Edge Media Network: HERE

Trayf is presented by New Repertory Theatre. Written by Lindsay Joelle. Directed by Celine Rosenthal. Scenic Designer: Grace Laubacher. Costume Designer: Becca Jewett. Lighting Designer: Marcella Barbeau. Sound Designer: Aubrey Dube.

There’s something to be said for the small things in life. New Repertory Theatre’s production of Lindsay Joelle’s Trayf runs eighty minutes. The set is made up of a bare stage and a few moving pieces of scaffolding. The lighting is restrained and subtle. There are rarely more than two characters onstage at any given moment and many of scenes take place in the front seat of a truck. Everything about the play feels small and that’s exactly why I loved it. Its scope is tiny and its effect is enormous. There was a moment, about five minutes into the show, when my shoulders involuntarily slackened and I fell back in my seat (because apparently going to the theater inspires much more tension in me than I had previously realized). I was settling in. There’s something in the play that triggers this kind of response. You relax into it, allowing its best qualities to wash over you. By the end of the evening, it manages to achieve what the best art does, (and what I think theater is uniquely able to do), by bringing me into the experiences of someone else and letting me feel the intimacy of that connection.

Ostensibly, the play is about two teenage Chasidic Jews, Zalmy (Ben Swimmer) and Shmuel (David Picariello), who live in New York City during the early 90s. The best friends have recently acquired an RV that they’re using to perform Mitzvahs (charitable or Holy acts) for Jewish people around the city. It essentially makes them the Chasidic Jewish version of the door-to-door Mormon missionaries (better actually, as these two at least come armed with snacks). Trouble for the friendship comes in the form of Jonathan (Nile Scott Hawver), a young man who has just discovered his own Jewish heritage and is hungry for a place to belong. As he starts to integrate himself into the duo, a riff forms between Zalmy and Schmuel that kicks up all sorts of questions for the duo as to what they want their futures to be.

But the reasons to recommend the production and what made it so magical for me actually have very little to do with the show’s plot. The play was very clearly written for a non-Chasidic audience as there’s quite a bit of handholding through Chasidic customs and terminology (something that this Catholic critic was thankful for). You would think that this would drag the play down, but playwright Joelle is smart enough to use the information delivery as a way into the characters. It’s necessary to have the characters describe their religion because it gives us the chance to see it through their eyes and feel the weight that it has for them. It’s an approach that Joelle will take to every other facet of Zalmy and Schmuel’s lives. The best scenes are the ones where the two are driving around the city getting into a back and forth conversation about anything and everything they care about. Those scenes are what generates the intimacy that makes the show such a gem. Seeing the reverence that the two direct towards a cassette tape of their favorite Chasidic music and hearing the nervous energy in Zalmy’s voice as he describes the time he secretly tried on a pair of jeans for the first time lets us pick up all we need to know about these two.

Really, this is a marriage story. One where the coupling is threatened with disintegration and we wait in hopeful anticipation that these two people we feel belong together, stay together. The relationship Zalmy and Schmuel have might technically never cross over to full-blown romance, but the dialogue between the two and the way that they speak about each other would be right at home in a play about an old married couple. The humor present in their conversation feels lived-in, so naturally a part of their banter that I doubt they’re aware anything humorous is going on, but the two are practically a vaudeville comedy team. And this is where New Repertory Theatre’s production really hit the jackpot. As the two leads, actors Swimmer and Picariello have the type of chemistry that other actors would gladly start sawing off limbs for. When they begin riffing off of each other, it’s like watching ballet. Each seems half a step ahead of the other and able to anticipate the other’s moves. It’s a joy to watch and listen to.

Not all of the other actors are quite so lucky. Despite the best efforts of actor Hawver, we’re never given enough access into his character Jonathan’s head for his arc to make sense. There’s clearly a larger story to be found in the way that he so readily throws himself into the Chasidic lifestyle, but what? Of all the things you could use to fill the void in your life, why this? We get a brief peak of what it is in a scene where he marvels at the community and family that Zalmy’s religion brings, but as he quickly falls into full-blown zealot territory, you feel like there are pieces to the puzzle that we’re not getting.

However, that hole in the story doesn’t distract from the many pleasures that Trayf offers the audience. This is the kind of story that I worry other critics will slap with the adjective “universal.” The idea being that audience can come see the show and say “Hey, they’re just like me.” I’m not really a fan of the word (at least not this week). And who knows? Maybe the characters are just like you. I certainly don’t want to discourage you from engaging in acts of empathy. But I think that what the play offers is not a chance to recognize yourself, but to step outside of yourself. To spend an evening getting inside someone else’s hopes, dreams and fears and seeing the world through their eyes. And really, isn’t that something worth celebrating?

Trayf is presented by New Repertory Theatre at the Mosesian Center for the Arts October 12-November 3,  2019.

For tickets and more information, visit their website: www.newrep.org

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