Lebensraum: An Unusual Homecoming

Israel Horovitz's Lebensraum begins with the present day chancellor of Germany, Rudolph Stroiber, deciding to make amends for the Holocaust by inviting 6 million Jews from anywhere in the world to come to his country, where they'll be given jobs and granted automatic citizenship.

 

After that, it starts getting weird.

 

Horovitz got the inspiration for this 1996 play, now enjoying a very moving and well-acted production at the Kirk, on a trip to Germany where he found that a production of one of his plays cut a line which referred to a character as being Jewish.  Being told, "You can't have a Jewish character in plays in Germany… it doesn't 'smell' good," led him to explore the country's distinct absence of anything that suggests a Jewish presence and the anti-German sentiment felt by post-war citizens when traveling abroad.  Horovitz depicts modern day Germany as a country filled with youth who were not educated in what was happening during the 1930's through the mid-40's and don't understand why the rest of the world blames them for what they believe to be the actions of a small radical faction.  The title was taken from the German word for "living space," the policy name used by Hitler to justify his invasion of neighboring nations to make more room for his countrymen.

 

Under director Jonathan Rest, a skilled trio of actors (Suli Holum, T. Ryder Smith and Ryan Young), all of whom remain on stage throughout, quickly bounce between narrating and performing over 80 roles in the complicated plot of interwoven stories.  If not for the subject matter I might describe their performance as a vaudeville, as Horovitz and Rest, along with set and prop designer Susan Zeeman Rogers and costume designer Esther Arroyo, hand out even doses of drama and humor.

 

Naturally, the unemployed German citizens are the first to object to "Project Homecoming," as the plan is called, seeing no reason why they should be made to pay for actions taken before they were even born.  There is also a violent reaction in Israel when a religious leader suggests taking the Germans up on their offer, while suspicious Jews form an underground army to make sure this is not a trick to kill more of their people.

 

The main storyline concerns an American family from Gloucester, Massachusetts who come to Germany because the dockworker father hasn't had a job in two years.  Mike Linsky, his wife Lizzie and their fifteen-year-old son Sam are the first "official" Jews to be welcomed into Germany (a gay French couple who arrive before them were told their papers weren't quite in order yet) and the government makes sure they become media celebrities in an effort to show the world how well the project is going.  (There's an inside joke regarding Sam being a big fan of The Beastie Boys; one of its members being the author's son, Adam Horovitz.)

 

Ryan Young and Suli Holum do their best work as Sam and his classmate Anna, who soon becomes his girlfriend.  Their tentative scenes of courtship as they try and understand each other's culture are quite touching and warmly humorous.  Anna has never known a Jew before and doubts if she's ever read a book by a Jew, heard music by a Jew nor has had any contact with anything Jewish.  It was only recently, when her teachers revolted against the practice of not teaching about the Holocaust, that Anna learned how ordinary Germans would turn over Jews to the Nazis.

 

One such German was Uta Krebs, who was responsible for young Max Zylberstein losing his entire family to the death camps.  Seventy years later, Max has returned to Berlin to seek his unusual revenge.  T. Ryder Smith, who gives an exceptionally detailed performance with each of his characters, is positively chilling in a monologue where Max finally gets to confront the woman who, at age 15, changed his life forever because she was jealous of his nice clothes.

 

Though its premise seems more than a bit outlandish and further suspension of disbelief is required to accept some of the plot twists and outcomes, Lebensraum is filled with intriguing moments, making for a thought-provoking and very satisfying evening.

 

Photos by Richard Termine:  Top:  Suli Holum, Ryan Young and T. Ryder Smith

Bottom:  Ryan Young, Suli Holum and T. Ryder Smith

To post a comment, you must register and login.