Nathan Englander’s topical, witty comedy has a fine cast directed by Patrick Marber. It is entertaining and thought-provoking, though some may find its display of arguments around the tragedy of Gaza quite daunting.
The play is set in 2024 when two Jewish women who haven’t been in contact for many decades arrange to meet, accompanied by their partners. The ultra-Orthodox Israeli couple Shoshana, known as Shosh, and her husband Yerucham, who goes by the name Yuri, arrive at the wealthy Florida home of the secular, politically leftish couple Phil and Debbie.
They will share some pictures and drink some vodka, but they will also quickly move into controversial areas of what it means to be Jewish, how they should treat those who stray from the path and inevitably what Israel is inflicting on Gaza, which Phil refers to as genocide.
Arguments turn into fistfights, but with the help of a hoard of dope, a game of “Anne Frank” and a dance in the rain, the play delivers a surprisingly uplifting ending that seems to echo the hope of the 1960s right down to the Bob Dylan recording played as we leave our seats.
Each scene is briefly announced by Debbie and Phil’s son Trevor acting as a humorous distancing effect. In one scene, he speaks about the “greedy billionaires” who are damaging the environment and argues, “every day is the new hottest fucking day on earth. Every day a record. And nobody with any power to make change cares.”
The writer and crew are careful not to demonise any character. They treat what they say seriously and give each a space to justify their positions. The secular Debbie (Caroline Catz) will admit she sometimes cries with regret about the religion she has left behind. Yuri (Simon Yadoo) will speak fondly of a less rigid childhood before he became fully committed to a more orthodox path. Shush (Dorothea Myer-Bennett), with a smile, will recall beach parties.
However, the play pitches tough questions about how we raise children and what it takes to be Jewish. Debbie and Phil seem unbothered by Trevor (Gabriel Howell) taking a year out of school and helping to create a mock religion called “the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster”, which spends time demanding equal rights with other religions. More provocatively, Shosh and Yuri say their “concern is not the past holocaust, it's the present one” in which they claim intermarriage “takes more than fifty per cent of the Jews each generation.”
The comedy, the satire is never simply comedy. It always has some thoughtful idea behind the joke, even if the earlier sections feel playful and akin to a light sitcom. And if most of the first half had the audience laughing non-stop, the later sections were more sobering, particularly when the characters tear into each other over Gaza. Even early on, Phil (Joshua Malina) compares Israel to apartheid South Africa, criticises the killing of a thousand Palestinian children in Gaza and refers to Israel as "ethnonationalistic".
When, after the interval, tempers really fly and Yuri details the atrocities suffered by Israel on 7 October 2023, Phil reminds the visitors that 7 October “was a response to decades of oppression,” calls what Israel is doing a genocide and argues that “dropping one-ton bombs on civilians. Starving them out. It's the greatest single shame in Jewish history.”
The later section could feel too raw, too provocative to some people, but it reflects the arguments many people are having with friends and family. It is doing what theatre should do: giving us a public airing of troubling times that helps us understand and empathise with others.