Evoking a past when A Happy End still seemed possible

Last night, I saw Iddo Netanyahu's play A Happy End at the Abingdon Theatre Company. Set in Berlin in the early 1930s, the piece splendidly evokes the excitement and glamor of a now lost world.

Much to the show's credit, it makes you forget at times that we all know how this story is going to end. The delightful cafes, the charming music, the splendid theatre scene of pre-war Berlin all come to life, and like the characters onstage, we don't want this carnival of culture and refinement to ever end.

South African-Israeli actress Carmit Levite plays Leah Erdmann, a woman who exemplifies the sophistication and high civilization of Germany. With her blond hair and statuesque figure, always dressed elegantly, whether in an evening dress or in resplendent lingerie, Leah Erdmann seems to personify everything that is German. However, she is also Jewish, and we all know what will happen to her unless she gets out of the country soon.

Leah's husband, Mark Erdmann, played by Curzon Dobell, is a physicist whose work has suddenly come under attack. To his profound shock, he is accused of writing papers containing degenerate "Semitic Physics" as opposed to good, wholesome "Aryan Physics" as if the laws of nature cared about the religion or ethnicity of their discoverer.

His assistant, played by Joel Ripka, eventually convinces him to reluctantly apply for jobs abroad. But when an acceptance letter arrives from Princeton, he and Leah find it difficult to contemplate leaving their home. "New Jersey?" they ask. "What on earth would we do in New Jersey?"

Live, of course is the answer, and up to the very end, the play holds out the hope that the Erdmann's will do just that.

Even when Mark and Leah strike us as somewhat jaded, it becomes impossible not to sympathize with their son Hans, played brilliantly by Phil Gillen, making his Off-Broadway debut. Hans is a poet and a great admirer of Heinrich Heine. In addition to being one of the greatest lyric poets Germany ever produced, Heine also happened to come from a Jewish family.

When both Hans and his idol Heine are accused of writing poetry that is "too Jewish" his girlfriend Martha (played by Allison Siko) suggests he is being too sensitive to criticism. Her remark might be entirely valid, were it not for the coming darkness that we in the audience all know is descending on Germany.

Abingdon regular Lori Gardner rounds out the cast as Anna, a young secretary taken under the wing of both Herr and Frau Erdmann. Anna is delightfully both good natured and clueless, attending plays with Leah which she does not understand, and helping her boss Mark navigate the perils of a new university administration which she does not want to understand.

The entire production is beautifully directed by Alex Dmitriev. Projections, skillfully designed by Dennis Corsi, help to create the atmosphere of the piece, as does David Margolin Lawson's sound design. (I still want to know where he found a German version of the song "Million Dollar Baby!")

A Happy End is playing through March 29th. For more information, check out Abingdon's website:

Abingdon Theatre Company

Fix Me, Jesus

This afternoon, I had the pleasure of seeing Helen Sneed's wonderful play Fix Me, Jesus at the Abingdon Theatre Company. The play takes place in 1986 in a dressing room at the Neiman Marcus in Dallas, Texas. Annabell Armstrong, played with delightful neurosis by Polly Lee, tries to pick a dress for "the most important night" of her entire life. As she goes through racks and racks of dresses, she relives her life story, from a precocious pre-teen, to a political junky, to a rising star in the Democratic Party. Her insecurities threaten to overwhelm her, as she comes closer and closer to a nervous breakdown, but Sneed's light touch means we in the audience laugh sympathetically along with the character, following her on her journey of self-discovery.

Annabell's younger self is played by Kate Froemmling, a student at the Professional Performing Arts School making her professional debut. Though child performers can sometimes make me cringe, her acting felt completely natural in the intimate Dorothy Strelsin Theatre. Her scenes with her mother (played by Abingdon regular Lori Gardner) giving her diet pills along with life-long body-image issues, were just heart-breaking. Equally effective were the scenes with her grandmother (played by Broadway veteran Lisa McMillan) in which the young girl tries to sort through the racist, anti-semitic, and homophobic diatribes of the older woman and discover what it is about her that is still worth emulating.

The sole male member of the cast is Mitch Tebo, who plays Annabell's psychiatrist and happens to have some of the best lines in the play, all of which he delivers with panache. However, the emotional core of Annabell's world, and of the play, turns out to be the Neiman Marcus sales clerk, Mrs. Craig, played flawlessly by Lee Roy Rogers, who has been seen recently in such hits as Tribes and Orson's Shadow. Mrs. Craig first meets young Annabell on the day that Kennedy is assassinated (and when another event happens that becomes pivotal in the lives of both women). Over the years, she helps Annabell find dresses for all of the important occasions in her life, gradually forming a bond we don't see at first, but that develops into something surprisingly beautiful.

Much of the success of the piece comes from the superb direction by Sam Pinkleton. Best known for his choreography in such shows as Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, Pinkleton maneuvers the cast around the stage of the Strelsin (notoriously about the size of a postage stamp) showing more than 20 years of Annabell's life. To his credit, it's almost always clear where and when the scenes are taking place. In this, he's aided by a set designed by Christopher Ford and Dakota Rose that is perfectly lit by Vadim Ledvin.

Unfortunately, Fix Me Jesus is only running until November 24, so hurry up and see it!