‘Asher Lev’: potent coming-of-age story
‘Forceful production’
NEW YORK, Nov 30, (AP): How does a young man choose between his family and his artistic talent, and can the power of art rise above religious restrictions? Those are some of the issues addressed with warmth and compassion by the potent drama, “My Name Is Asher Lev.”
An adaptation by Aaron Posner from Chaim Potok’s best-selling 1972 novel of the same name opened Wednesday night in a forceful production at the Westside Theatre. Compressed into one 90minute act, the memory play recalls the coming-of-age of a gifted, driven, Orthodox Jewish artist in 1950s Brooklyn.
Asher’s devoutly Hasidic parents and community can’t understand his need to draw at all, let alone his early her previous work.
Too often Rebeck’s insights come in the form of clunky fortune cookie proverbs, as when one character says, “It’s complicated. But anything true, is!” Or when another says: “Religion and money are just the dumb things we use to plug up the hole in our hearts because we’re so afraid of dying.”
The heavy lifting is done by Butz, who plays Jack, a banker who one day abandons his rich life in Manhattan for the calmer hometown sweetness of Cincinnati and his listless sister (Holmes), old buddy (a contained Josh compulsion to draw unpleasant subjects like demons, and later on, nudes and crucifixion scenes.
Youthful Asher has a self-absorbed world view, and Ari Brand convincingly embodies him at different ages with fierce intensity and passion. Narrating as an adult, Asher looks back over the years to his initial childhood obsession with drawing, stepping into intersecting scenes that reveal major events impacting his family and his artistic development.
Gordon Edelstein directs the production, cleverly staging it on a spare set with just three actors. Without being overly sentimental, Edelstein creates a slightly melancholy yet warm atmosphere, in quick scenes that reflect Asher’s kaleidoscopic memories and display the complex Hamilton) and his slightly demented mother (a delightful Houdyshell). His chilly wife (nicely nasty Judy Greer) follows.
Jack is slightly crazed, buying too much ice cream and pizzas, sitting too close to people, spouting strange manic philosophy and flitting generally too close to the psychic edge. His sister puts it perfectly when she calls him “very a lot.” The Act I curtain falls on the stunning reason he has fled.
Also: LOS ANGELES: Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson plans to issues he and his parents must deal with.
Posner’s script is both gently humorous and rueful, as the boy who loves his family and his religion wrestles with a stronger need to pursue his art, wherever it may take him.
Brand coveys a range of nuance as Asher, alternately defensive, or mystified, or shocked by his own bold actions. His struggle to reconcile his art with his religion is paralleled by the ages-old generational battles of son versus father, displayed in a particularly humorous scene when Asher tries to explain to his shocked parents the difference between artistic nudes and “naked women.”
Mark Nelson is excellent in several roles, first as Asher’s good-hearted but stubborn father, Aryeh, who’s take his one-man theater show on the road across the United States early next year.
Tyson, 45, made the announcement on ABC’s late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday.
“Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth” is an autobiographical monologue performed by Tyson in which he reflects upon his tough childhood in Brooklyn, the absence of his father and his selfdescribed “reckless and destructive” behavior. It premiered in Las Vegas in April and had a run on Broadway.
Tyson, whose reputation was boosted by a cameo in the 2009 hit comedy “The often away from home opening yeshivas in postwar Russia and Europe. Nelson also creates a lively, wry persona for Jacob Kahn, a renowned Jewish artist who mentors teenage Asher with the blessing of the Rebbe who rules the Levs’ Hasidic community. Nelson also enacts the Rebbe, with a weary but compassionate air.
Jenny Bacon appears lit from within as Asher’s loving, gentle mother, Rivkeh, and greatly alters her personality to also portray a sophisticated gallery owner and a model. Rivkeh constantly tries to mediate between her son’s belief in his gift and her husband’s inability to accept that a “Torah Jew” could defy centuries of family tradition and follow the “foolishness” of art. Hangover,” told Kimmel that his inspiration for the show came from a one-man performance of “A Bronx Tale” in Las Vegas.
The 23-date tour, which features the Broadway show directed by Spike Lee, is scheduled to begin on February 12 in Indianapolis, Indiana, the city where Tyson was convicted in 1992 of raping then 18-year-old beauty queen Desiree Washington.
Tyson, who at the age of 20 became the youngest world heavyweight champion, served three years in prison before restarting his boxing career in 1995.