Chaim Potok’s
novel, THE CHOSEN, has been adapted into a play, a movie, even a Broadway
musical. The dramatic version up at the Lyric Stage (through November 17th)
was adapted by Potok himself and Aaron Posner. The author uses the past
participle in his story (as in God’s Chosen People) to address choices:
The disastrous choices made by nations to ignore what was happening in Germany;
and personal choices that parents make in rearing their children, specifically
the unfortunate choice one father makes to shut out his son---and the loving
way another chooses to nurture his.
It’s ironic that
the spiritual leader of his Hasidic community (Joel Colodner in a magnificent
performance) in 1940s Brooklyn should give his son the silent treatment (he
says, to teach him humility) when the silence of world leaders who knew about
the Holocaust had such dire consequences. Luke Murtha plays his wounded son
with such gentle sadness that our hearts go out to him, despite the fact that
he brains another boy with a baseball in a game against students from a reformed
Jewish neighborhood (whom the Hasidic spiritual leader calls “non-Jews”).
Murtha’s and
Zachary Eisenstat’s characters become fast friends, after apologies are offered
and accepted. The play follows the boys from middle school through university,
making important choices on their own. Daniel Gidron’s cast makes their small
stories resonate large. Murtha and Eisenstat are delightfully yin and yang, learning
from their differences. Charles Linshaw sometimes voices Eisenstat’s character
as the narrator, which is a bit confusing at first until you absorb the
conceit. Will McGarrahan gives the other father a warm, bemused personality, in
contrast to the rabbi’s unyielding silence.
