Huntington's "We All Fall Down": Why is this Play Different....

The Cast of "We All Fall Down"
(photo: Nile Hawver)

We All Fall Down is Huntington Theatre Company's current production, the world premiere of a comedy by Somerville resident Lila Rose Kaplan, in her Huntington debut. It's the story of Linda (Eleanor Reissa), the matriarch of a non-observant Jewish family who suddenly decides to plan a Seder in her home in Westchester at “Passover in early April”. This comes as a surprise to the family, especially her husband Saul (Stephen Schnetzer), and the other characters, which include their two grown daughters Sammi (Liba Vaynberg) and Ariel (Dana Stern), Saul's sister Nan (Phyllis Kay), their former neighbor Beverly (Sarah Newhouse) and Linda's assistant Ester (Elle Borders). As Kaplan notes in the program, it started as a play about a daughter, evolving into a play about a whole family, in keeping with the playwright's body of theatrical works that emphasize women's stories and family intergenerational relationships. As she puts it, “we are so many ages inside. To put more than one age on stage and the page is really a more true portrait of what it is to be a human.” Director Melia Bensussen adds that the Haggadah, a text that tells you all the steps in a Seder, tells the story of Moses from birth to exodus, in the process becoming a theatrical experience that Kaplan describes as the original dinner theater. At a spare ninety minutes or so, it's fast if not furious, and soon answers the query as to why this play is different from other plays. Because it is.

The Cast of "We All Fall Down"
(photo: Nile Hawver)

It's a curious amalgam of Borscht belt comedy (for example, having Beverly, who is not Jewish, refer to Passover as the “Jewish Easter”) and underlying family tragedy. There is a longing for the beliefs that once brought people together. First-timers to a Seder are advised to bring with them a measure of patience, and no bread (or anything with leavening, no yeast or beer). It comes to pass that we realize that there's a place for everyone here, as we celebrate liberation: while we were once slaves, we are now free. Playwright Kaplan admits that the fact that her first name, Lila, means “night” in Hebrew, led her to explore why this night is different from all other nights, and to reflect on the reason people from Jewish culture are drawn to Seder, namely the same reason we are all drawn to theater: we come together for storytelling, which helps us to become better at being human. This concept comes vividly true toward the end of the play when it somewhat suddenly shifts to seriousness even as the family re-enacts the old familiar nursery rhyme from childhood:

     Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies, ash, ash, we all fall down.

The meaning of the song has long been lost to the ages, but the use of it in this pivotal scene exposes what one already has surmised if she or he has been paying attention to the clues the playwright has dropped along the way.

The Cast of "We All Fall Down"
(photo: Neil Hawver)

This play, already extended through February 15^th, features the sadly funny Reissa in the matriarchal role, a difficult character to play given her obtuseness about some every day factoids, and the secretive Schnetzer, a Catholic Memorial High School graduate (as is this critic), holding his own surrounded by a half dozen actresses: Borders, Newhouse, Vaynberg, Stern and especially Kay (long associated with Trinity Rep in Providence). Under the direction of Bensussen, they manage to elevate the more sitcom moments in the work (which even has black-outs, and features a trio of urination scenes). The creative team boasts clever Scenic Design by Judy Gailen, Costume Design by Karen Perry (one really over the top), Lighting Design by Russell H. Champa and Sound Design by David Remedios.

Lurking beneath the sporadic hilarity of the play, as in most comedies, is a serious look at the ever-expanding reality that many folks of previous faith have lost the spiritual aspects of their daily existence, exhibited in the wry expression “I don't believe in God, but I miss Him”; or, as Pogo long ago put it in his comic strip philosophical musings, “God isn't dead, He's just unemployed”.