Time to stir Zangwill’s pot
as do the plants in its arid garden.
Yet in the case of campaigning plays such as this one, Israel Zangwill’s 1908 hymn to the elevating effect of immigration on the human race, what counts as much as the play itself is the timing of this production.
The East End-born, high-minded son of Russian Orthodox Jewish immigrants sets his play in New York. Had it been dusted off even just two years ago it would have been of only passing interest. But in Trump’s era, a play whose main protagonist describes America as “God’s crucible” in which the “fusion of all races” heralds nothing less than the “coming of modern man” is now less a hymn of idealism, than a damning indictment of anyone who has forgotten how America became great in the first place.
Zangwill’s hero is self taught composer and violinist David (an intense Steffan Cennydd). He’s a newly-installed New York immigrant and survivor of a Russian pogrom in which his family were killed in front of him. Zangwill’s heroine is Vera (a poised Whoopie van Raam), the daughter of a Russian baron. Her social conscience has turned her away from a life of wealth and privilege in Russia, to charity work in New York where she helps resettle immigrants. And so it seems the barriers to David and Vera’s unlikely union will dissolve in New York’s melting pot, a term that was popularised by Zangwill’s play.
But Trump’s politics can only go so far to help this resurrection. What weighs it down is a clunky plot device. The baron, it turns out, is the very army officer who oversaw the slaughter of David’s family. And no less heavy handed is the earnest idealism with which David utters every artistic and political opinion. Indeed Zangwill’s writing is brimful of sermonising intent whose progressive message was no doubt edifying for his audience but is somewhat annoyingly preachy today.
Still, Max Elton’s production boasts some good performances, particularly from Van Raam as the face of reformed Russian nobility, and Hayward B Morse who delivers a cracking cameo full of humour and humanity as Pappelmeister, the German maestro who discovers David’s talent as a composer.
The play was first seen in Washington and was eagerly endorsed by President Theodore Roosevelt. There can be no better time for it to be seen there again.