Round House's productions this season have touched a great deal on artists, the meaning of art, and the role that art and artists play in our lives. Just as in Permanent Collection, their previous production, "Asher Lev" deals with conflicting ideas about art.
"Asher" is the epitome of artistic and personal questioning. What does it mean to declare "My name is..." and to whom are you declaring it? We come to question who we are as we look in the mirror to study our own images, and we wonder what it is that we can express to the world through our own perceptions of ourselves--and the world.
Asher (played by Alexander Strain) stands between two worlds; as an "observant Jew" he must honor his heritage, his mysterious but palpable ancestors, as well as his parents and their ethic of devotion and duty to their people. But as an observant artist, he must reach beyond that experience to find his own truth. That Asher begins to explore the sensibilities and imagery of the Other--particularly the image of crucifixions pervading Christian art--horrifies and offends his parents just as much as his drawings of nudes do.
In one scene between Asher and his father (played by Adam Heller), Asher tries to explain the difference between "naked girls" and "nudes." The discussion pulls up short of comic absurdity, just at the point where Asher's father, hailing his own master's degree in political science, matches Asher intellectually: the son accuses the father of aesthetic blindness, and the father accuses the son of moral blindness.
The bridge I see between those blindnesses is the nude itself, so well presented by the same actress playing Asher's mother (Lise Bruneau). It is through our bodies that we sense the world, feel our emotions, express our feelings. Asher the artist sees the nude and begins to see, to feel, the emotions of woman; likewise, his exposure to Christian imagery of sacrifice (the crucifixions he studies) informs his understanding of his mother's suffering.
The pivotal image in the play is one we do not see except through Asher's vivid narration and the stunningly effective lighting design's (Dan Covey) sculptural renderings of the actors. Asher's masterpiece paintings to be displayed in a Manhattan gallery, unbeknownst to his Brooklyn parents, depict his Jewish mother on a cross; the audience sees only Asher's parents' horrified response to the paintings as the mother raises her arms and twists her body in a silhouetted reflection of what she sees.
Asher Lev narrates the story throughout the play, facing the audience more than his fellow characters; this bothered me at the beginning because of our old creative-writing-class dictum, "show don't tell." Yet, as an adaptation of a novel told in the first person, the play honors the ancient art of story telling. It is Asher's story, after all. And the staging kept the narration moving.
The actor playing Asher's father also plays his mentor, the father's antithesis, paralleling the opposites-casting of the same actress playing Asher's mother and nude model. (The roles are listed in the program simply as "Man" and "Woman.") The actors thus become our bridges of understanding the two moral worlds, illustrating that it is never so simple as good versus evil.
And that is what art does. We feel the world and express it through our bodies and souls. But we cannot afford to simply be observant Jews; we must also be listening Jews (and gentiles and all else).
The Thursday night preview audience, traditionally a sparse and low-key group, gave the performance a standing ovation. My neighboring fellow subscriber said it was the best thing she'd seen at Round House. I would certainly put it up there with "Drawer Boy" and "Lord of the Flies," two of my favorites since the company moved to Bethesda. I thought I might dig out the book again (it's been on my own shelf since I retrieved it from my mom's collection nearly 30 years ago), but I think I want to let this moving rendition live with me awhile longer.
Other credits:
Aaron Posner, playwright
Jeremy Skidmore, director
Tony Cisek, scenic designer
Ren Ladassor, costume designer
Matthew M. Nielson, sound designer
Co-produced by the Delaware Theatre Company
Addendum: 27 March 2010
A little disappointed that the Post couldn't send a staff theater critic and didn't run a review until the weekend. Round House Theater reviews typically come out on Wednesday (Thursday at the latest). This is Saturday, when people have already made their plans for the weekend. Oh well. There's still time. Go see this play!
Washington Post review by a freelancer: Nelson Pressley reviews 'My Name Is Asher Lev' at Round House Theatre
(production photo by Matt Urban)
Video preview (on WaPo - embedding seems not to work for me)
Thanks for posting such a thoughtful review of Asher Lev. I read the book many years ago, but didn't realize it had been re-written as a play until I drove by the Roundhouse theater last night. I wasn't sure if I wanted to see it, but your review convince me that I should.
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