Recommended
Can you hold two ideas at once?
The Ally at Theater Wit proves “no good deed goes unpunished,” when a sympathetic person decides to support a local cause by simply signing a petition.
Asaf Sternheim (Jordan Lane Shappell) is a writer who recently moved from New York to a small college town where wife Gwen Kim (K Chinthana Sotakoun) recently got a job as a community liaison working on the expansion of the school’s property.
The relationship between the school and the community has been strained because the expansion is creeping into the adjacent low-income community. Tensions are compounded by the fact that a young African-American man has been killed by the police over his alleged participation in a series of car thefts.
Sternheim is an adjunct writing teacher at the college. The victim’s cousin Baron Prince (DeVaughn Asante Loman) is one of his students, who asks him to sign a petition denouncing police brutality.
The petition is attached to a manifesto that was written by activist Nakia Clark (Sharyon Culberson) who is the former girlfriend of Sternheim from his undergraduate years.
The document includes language that denounces the state of Israel, equating the oppression of Blacks in America to the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza, including the words apartheid and genocide which Sternheim who is Jewish, with familial ties to Israel, finds excessive and offensive. As he considers his position he decides to sign anyway setting off a cascade of events that affect him directly.
Immediately Sternheim is approached by two students Rachel Klein (Mira Kessler) and Farid El Masry (Arman Ghaeini). The two ask him to be the faculty sponsor for their new organization aimed at uniting Jewish and Palestinian students. Feeling it is best to encourage dialogue he agrees. Soon after, he is confronted by Reuven Fisher (Evan Ozer) the leader of a Jewish student organization opposed to this alliance urging him to withdraw his support.
Unlike his characters, who are all firmly wed to their positions, playwright Itmar Moses does a truly admirable job presenting each person’s point-of-view giving everyone a voice with clear, salient arguments.
The material risks becoming oppressive, but Moses lightens it from time to time with humor drawn largely from Sternheim’s predicament — a situation with no apparent graceful exit.
It’s human nature to seek resolution to conflict but Moses shows us that this is not always possible. Some situations have no clear beginning and no clear end; they’re simply part of a continuum of life with all of its power struggles. Along the way things get better and things get worse. Many people are hurt. Some believe they have the answers while others simply find themselves in the middle of a confusing morass. This of course does not mean we should give up trying to make improvements. Moses manages to lay out the components in a remarkably well-organized fashion, then leaves it to us to sort it out.
Under the steady directorial hand of Jeremy Wechsler, each individual performance is outstanding, presenting complicated dialogue with passion and conviction.
The production runs a bit long. The final scene does not seem as well-conceived as the rest of the play. Moses gives us an expansive cross-section of opposing forces teacher, student, black, white, Asian, Jewish, Palestinian, liberal, conservative, male, female, wife, husband and Ex. The amount of information can be overwhelming, so finding a way to tighten it up would be an improvement.
The evocative set design of Joe Schermoly represents a library with an impressive array of books serving as an academic background but also mocking us with the idea that we have so much knowledge – – yet what have we learned?
If you’re interested in the events of the day and have the capacity to take in a lot of information while considering opposing ideas you will find this a thought-provoking presentation in an entertaining package.
The Ally is at Theater Wit, 1229 W Belmont, Chicago IL 60657. Runtime is about 2 ½ hours with one intermission. For information visit theaterwit.org or call 773-975-8150.
Review by Reno Lovison
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