Off Broadway’s new hit about love, faith, and Brooklyn is “absorbing, twisty, and thoughtful—and the finest play of the year” (The Wall Street Journal).
In The Wanderers, two couples from very different worlds face the joys and challenges of commitment, culture, and community—until a surprise email from a movie star puts one of their marriages to an unexpected test. Now extended through April 2 only, this “perfectly cast, superlative Roundabout Theatre Company production” (as The Wall Street Journal goes on to say), asks the vital question, Can we ever be happy with what we have while we have it?
"This absorbing, twisty, and thoughtful play is the finest play of the year!" – Charles Isherwood, The Wall Street Journal
“A charming, deeply moving new play—it sparkles!” – Elysa Gardner, New York Sun
“The Wanderers lasts only 105 minutes, yet effectively and expertly holds enough storylines for a half dozen lesser plays.” – Robert Hoffler, The Wrap
Visit roundabouttheatre.org
Call 212.719.1300
Or visit the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre Box Office: 111 West 46th Street, New York, NY 10036
Under Barry Edelstein’s adroit, sensitive direction, “Wanderers” sparkles not only as a study of these engaging characters, but as one of a heritage, and its different cultural variations and generational shifts. As a thoroughly secular Jew, I was deeply moved watching Esther and Schmuli grapple — through different perspectives, and with different outcomes — with the requirements of tradition, and then observing as Sophie and Abe try to thrive on their own terms, albeit with their parents’ examples and burdens never far from their hearts.
The comparison between the two marriages, each undone by the search for something outside the characters’ ken, nevertheless feels specious. The dialogue in both sections, sprinkled like parsley with pidgin Yiddish and Hebrew prayer, has a secondhand aura that is also unconvincing. More authentic are the wigs by Tommy Kurzman and costumes by David Israel Reynoso; you certainly never question which world you’re in as the fur hats and wigs — the shtreimels and sheitels — give way to sweatpants.
2020 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2023 | Off-Broadway |
Roundabout Theatre Off-Broadway Premiere Production Off-Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2023 | Theatre World Awards | Theatre World Awards | Lucy Freyer |
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