MY NAME IS ASHER LEV at Theatre on the Bay

Aaron Posner's play, MY NAME IS ASHER LEV, is adapted from the bestselling novel by Chaim Potok. For as long as he can remember, Asher Lev wanted to draw, needed to draw - every surface is a canvas for his mystifying gift. Asher grows up as a "Torah Jew" in post-war Crown Heights, Brooklyn. In 1952, at the age of six, he is seized by his Muse, irresistibly driven to draw and to apprehend the world through the prism of his vision. His parents, Aryeh and Rivkeh, refugees from Stalin’s Soviet Union, are devout followers of the unquestioned authority of the Rebbe. Aryeh is dedicated to the support and rescue of oppressed Russian Jews, consigning him to constant travel for diplomacy, fundraising, building schools and reclaiming shuls. In his long absences, Asher and his mother are particularly close, and she can be supportive of his gift even as his father considers it a waste of time and a distraction from study. Aryeh must navigate her commitments to both men through their irreconcilable conflicts, and within herself, she must adapt, and survive her inconsolable griefs and frustrated drives for personal fulfilment. The development of Asher’s great talent is traced in a setting where tradition and individualism are in constant conflict and the tension between religion and art is life-long. Asher is driven to make a choice.