Review by Ron Fassler . . .
One of the first things you might be struck by while watching Jonathan Spector’s impressive three-hour and twenty-minute Birthright, currently playing at MCC, is how musical it is for a straight play. Each of the play’s six-member group of friends, with whom we travel over a near-twenty-year period of shared experience, have their own specific manners of speech; each of them spouting long arias that land on the ear with unyielding honesty and purpose. I was reminded of David Adjmi’s Stereophonic, another three hour play in which a group of people shared their fears and dreams (and not just because the talented Eli Gelb appears in both). What Spector is on to here is galvanic, fully realized by director Teddy Bergman’s beautifully layered production. Like Stereophonic, which began off Broadway at Playwright’s Horizons before moving to Broadway and winning the Tony Award for Best Play, Birthright seems destined to follow in its footsteps.
For those who can’t contemplate sitting through a play of this length, please do not be put off by it. When the dialogue is as smart and deep as Spector’s writing, if you’re like me, you’re willing to take a long day’s journey into night (I attended a matinee). Then again, I’m the guy who left The Lehman Trilogy feeling that it would have been fine if had gone on an hour more and been titled The Lehman Quartet. Also, considering that Birthright’s structure consists of three acts with two intermissions, it’s the same as binging the first three episodes of an exciting and fresh TV series (and who among us hasn’t done that?). And considering that prior to entering the theatre, your phone is place in sealed pouches, you are instead forced to sit with the play and what it’s saying rather than check in with the world outside during its two intermissions, all of which is refreshing beyond words.
The play starts in 2006 with the five leading characters in their early twenties. They have recently befriended one another on an all-expenses paid Birthright trip to Israel, except for two who have known each other since kindergarten, Chaya (Zoë Winters) and Izzy (Molly Bernard), both highly educated and independent young women. The reunion is being hosted by Chaya at her parents’ well-heeled Annandale, Virginia home, where we also meet her mother Deborah (Liz Larsen), a suburban matron of a seemingly liberal bent. Noah (Eli Gelb) is an intellectual and a writer with an obvious unrequited crush on Chaya; Alona (Molly Ranson), is a grad student at Yale who is getting her masters in sociology and, loved her visit so much, is thinking of moving to Israel; Emerson (Nate Mann) is a wannabe rock musician with what appears to be a substance abuse issue; and Lev (Hale Appleman) is a quixotic free spirit who flies in on a cloud of mystery as the last to arrive. How Spector introduces them and supplies exposition in subtle and clever ways should be taught in playwriting classes.
Act Two takes place ten years later, once again at Chaya’s parents’ home, only this time the set has been changed at intermission to the back porch area and a working hot tub, referred to and utilized (offstage) in Act One. Here, with the 2016 Hilary Clinton-Donald Trump election about to go down, we get deeper into relationships and find out who is thriving and who is lost. The reason for this reunion is the marriage of Alona to an offstage male partner, which brings up long simmering tensions on a variety of personal and professional matters. The result is a remarkable transitioning of wants and desires with Spector cunningly circumventing our expectations.
Act Three is a gathering for a profound purpose in 2023 not long after the coordinated October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas. Now around the age of forty, the group haven’t seen much of one another in the proceeding years leaving room for both perspective and, in certain relationships, mutual enmity. Since their Jewishness has been a topic of conversation since we first met them, the heightened pressure of this world shattering event makes this last meeting the most intense and brittle, but also one with the power to heal.
In terms of the cast there are no favorites to point out, however Zoë Winters is unquestionably a standout due to how much of the play she must carry. Sometimes speaking as fast as Robin Williams on a tear, Winters is in full command of her body and instrument and gives a master class in how to create a tough, yet vulnerable young woman. Eli Gelb, earlier mentioned for his Tony nominated performance in Stereophonic, gives another perfectly pitched performance as a similar diamond in the rough. Nate Mann imbues Emerson with a gentle vibe that belies what’s churning inside and Hale Appleman, the only member of the cast to have previously done the play in its first production a year ago in Miami (also directed by Teddy Bergman), brings mystery and multiple layers of joy and despair to Lev.
The two Mollys (Bernard and Ransom) are magical as Izzy and Alona, respectively. Neither role is an easy one to pull off; Bernard’s mix of compassion and righteousness is accomplished with the dexterity of a surgeon’s scalpel, and Ransom’s take on Alona’s high-mindedness and mix of cultural pride and practicality is a thing to behold. Lastly, Liz Larsen’s Deborah takes a character that could easily be rendered solely for comedy by a lesser actress and imbues her with pride and dignity that warms the heart (and she easily gets her laughs). Aided by Bergman’s seamless direction, Spector’s canny dramatic structure is met by a production that meets it every step of the way.
Scott Pask’s sets are as sharply perceptive as the writing, beautifully rendered in period details (the iMac G3 onstage in Act One should have taken its own curtain call). The costumes by Clint Ramos are dead on, and Natasha Katz’s lighting fits the many moods of the playwright’s intentions, both indoors and out. And the projection design by David Bengali is enthralling, if such a thing can be said about projection design.
We’re only halfway through 2026, but Birthright is the play of the year. Described on the MCC website as “a chronicle of a generation in three breathtaking acts,” this is an indelible theatre experience not to be missed. They come along too rarely.
Birthright is at MCC, 511 W 52 Street, NYC now through August 22. For ticket information, click here.
Photos by Emilio Madrid.
Headline photo: Zoë Winters, Eli Gelb, Molly Ranson, Nate Mann, and Hale Appleman in Birthright.
