Iddo Netanyahu play looks at a family facing a crisis in Berlin during rise of the Nazis (photo by Kim T. Sharp)
June Havoc Theatre, Abingdon Theatre Company
Abingdon Theatre Arts Complex
312 West 36th St. between Eighth & Ninth Aves.
Through March 29, $65
www.ahappyend.net
www.abingdontheatre.org
In January, in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in Paris, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “This week, a special team of ministers will convene to advance steps to increase immigration from France and other countries in Europe that are suffering from terrible anti-Semitism.” His bold and controversial proclamation couldn’t help but remind one of the decisions European Jews had to make in the 1930s, faced with the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich. To stay or to go during that unhappy time is what Bibi’s younger brother, Iddo, author and part-time radiologist, explores in A Happy End, a compelling if unsubtle play making its New York premiere by the Abingdon Theatre Company. (Iddo and Bibi’s eldest brother, Yoni, was the only Israeli soldier killed in the 1976 raid on Entebbe.) Originally commissioned in Italy in 2008 for European Holocaust Memorial Day, the play takes place over four months in 1932-33 Berlin, as Hitler is amassing power, a situation dismissed by erudite physicist Mark Erdmann (Curzon Dobell). His wife, Leah (Carmit Levité), is having an affair with his lab colleague, Dieter Kraft (Joel Ripka), a non-Jew who recognizes the increasing level of anti-Semitism in the country and tries to convince his boss that he needs to leave Germany before it is too late. But Mark and Leah, who have a talented son, Hans (Phil Gillen), refuse to abandon the only home they’ve ever known. “They’re on the decline,” Mark says about the Nazis. “Politicians can’t dictate how we should live our lives,” Leah adds. But despite the play’s title, it’s doubtful things will work out well.
Leah (Carmit Levité) and Mark Erdmann (Curzon Dobell) consider leaving their home behind in A HAPPY END (photo by Kim T. Sharp)
Numerous minor set changes help move the action more than Alex Dmitriev’s rather plain direction, as there is a lot of just sitting and standing around. Levité, a South African-Israeli actress, overplays Leah at first before eventually settling into the role of a glamorous woman who wants it all, a young lover in addition to a wise, successful husband (and fabulous clothes designed by Laura Crow). Dobell is rock-solid as an intellectual who is focused more on his work than the strong emotions swirling around him; when a waiter in a café turns on the radio to listen to a Hitler speech, Mark asks him to turn it off, as if that will make the potential next chancellor just go away. Lori Gardner adds doses of humor as Anna, Mark’s assistant, although repeated borrowings of his pen get tired. (Perhaps this is a reference to the pen being mightier than the sword, or, as a real stretch, even Jean-Marie Le Pen, the longtime leader of France’s right-wing National Front, but either way, it grows old quickly.) Ripka is earnest as the sincere Dieter, wanting the Erdmanns to be safe even though their leaving would impact him both personally and professionally. A Happy End is a thought-provoking work that handles its familiar subject matter with great care, a tale that will have you wondering what you would do in a similar situation. Sadly, there are many people around the world, especially in Europe right now, faced with that very real decision.