Forward Theater starts its season with The Wanderers, a moving portrait of two generations of Jewish Brooklyners searching for happiness. With a universally strong cast and straightforward direction by Mikael Burke, the play examines how cracks in relationships can turn into chasms and how escaping from one unsatisfying circumstance does not guarantee a better one. Performed in the Playhouse at Overture Center, The Wanderers continues through Sept. 25.
Rather than being a plot-driven drama, Anna Ziegler’s play is more a meditation on the idea of FOMO, or the “fear of missing out.” When we meet the two married couples in The Wanderers they are definitely looking over their shoulders, worrying that a better, alternate life might be passing them by. Each works through their traditionally prescribed days, wondering if their careers, their spouses, their families and their spirituality are enough to make them happy. And from the safety of their settled worlds, they question whether the rules that govern their every action protect them from harm or hinder them from having a more meaningful life.
In the early 1970s we meet Esther and Schmuli (Elyse Edelman and Paris Hunter Paul), a Hasidic Jewish couple who are getting to know each other on their wedding night. Two young people from an intentionally insular, strictly religious community, their arranged marriage is both traditional and terrifying. But Esther’s face glows with possibility for the future adventures they are embarking on. By contrast, Schmuli plays nervously with the fringe on his prayer shawl and the payot that frame his face as he sits on the edge of his marriage bed. He falls back on ritual as he anxiously faces the unknown. Over time, as one half of the couple pulls forward, toward new experiences, and the other pushes back, toward the old ways, we see their fraught relationship stretch to the breaking point, with heart-wrenching consequences.
Both actors bring nuanced, many-layered performances to these characters, who could have simply settled into stark opposites. Edelman finds moments of humor to soften her disappointment at the small life she is granted as a Hasidic wife, who cannot go outside, listen to the radio, get a job, or even consider using birth control if she is to follow the tenets of their sect. The loss and longing on Edelman’s expressive face when her husband disappoints her over and over grows cumulatively heavier. When Schmuli punishes Esther’s modern ideas in an unthinkable way, it is a true act of defiance that her articulate rage comes to the surface instead of sadness.
Schmuli could easily have been painted with a simple oppressive brush, as an ultra-conservative man desperate to constrain his wife on the brink of the women’s movement. Instead Paul makes him fallible, shyly insecure, and full of his own secret longing that — in important but fleeting moments — makes him sympathetic. Behind Paul’s eyes, there is constant distraction as he wrestles with the strict rules of his piety and its supposed reward. He creates a man who sees ultimate beauty in nature and feels the divine more keenly in classical music than evening prayers, but whose fear of the unknown paralyzes him and breaks his marriage to pieces. It is a delicate balance and one Paul achieves with grace.
This marriage of extremes contrasts with a 21st-century couple who are getting by in a much more recognizable blur of ennui. On the surface, Sophie and Abe (Alanna Lovely and Greg Pragel) don’t seem unhappy, they are just out of synch and bored with one another. Childhood friends who married, they are non-practicing Jews living in Brooklyn with two children and two very different careers in the same field: Abe is a wildly successful novelist, while Sophie’s first book failed to launch.
When we meet them, Abe is looking for excitement rather than intimacy as a remedy for his malaise. He asks for it from his wife, but he finds it on the internet with Julia, a glamorous movie star who is also a fan of his work and attended one of his recent readings. Abe strikes up a lively conversation with Julia (an elegant Cassandra Bissell), which quickly turns into a mutual admiration fest, which then turns into something more. Lines are inevitably crossed as Abe becomes more fascinated and less guarded with this Hollywood actress, who not only praises his work but seems to really understand him. What began as an interesting flirtation becomes an intoxicating happiness that he cannot find in real life. But then…
The twist to this story is clever and painful, and will make you rethink the entire play.
As the sophisticated film star with the surprisingly down-to-earth conversation style, Bissell is lovely. Dressed in swanky, colorful outfits that flatter her statuesque physique, she effortlessly commands attention but withholds deep emotions as Julia remains tantalizingly out of reach. (The effective costume design is by Karen Brown-Larimore.) The satisfaction on Bissell’s face as she praises Abe’s novels is that of a woman who knows every writer’s Achilles heel.
As Abe, Greg Pragel is honest and authentic in his portrayal of a man wrestling with both a midlife crisis and a lifetime of self-recrimination and doubt. Privately tortured about his real duties to his parents, his wife and to himself, Pragel smoothly evolves from a somewhat detached, nice guy and literary geek to a desperate, passionate man plagued by personal demons. As he starts craving Julia’s attention more, even confiding his darkest secrets to her in an attempt to keep the connection, he clearly illustrates the allure of an online dalliance and the damage it can do offline.
Although Abe’s wife Sophie begins the show with a stunning reveal, the character feels underwritten and one-note as the practically invisible wife, who is left to do all the childcare and tasks around the home, while receiving little support from her “genius” author husband. Her scenes are filled with complaints that verge on whining, providing a consistent backdrop to Abe’s story, rather than one in which Sophie also grows and changes. Actress Alanna Lovely breaks out of that pattern only occasionally, even when delivering shattering news about her husband’s family and his wandering eye. The result is less balance than we see in the other couple, and consequently, less investment in their resolution.
Perhaps the most interesting concept the play addresses is the dichotomy of danger and safety. As we follow the characters’ quests for fulfillment, the play shows us how easy it is to mistake one for the other. The Wanderers’ final scenes also illustrate that happiness may not be attainable as a stable or permanent state of being. The tiny moments of delight that the uncoupled pairs enjoy together is proof that joy is unpredictable and fragile — like the snowflakes that fall softly on a dark Brooklyn night.
