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Asher Lev
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literature as his artistic outlet. But his literary aspirations were also discouraged. In his Teaneck talk, he recalled that when he told his mother of his intention to become a writer, she replied, “You want to write stories, darling? That’s very nice. You’ll be a brain surgeon, and, on the side, you’ll write stories.” It’s a family story, one which his daughter, Naama (who is the understudy for the role of Asher’s mother Rivkeh in the play) was familiar with. “My father understood that all artists feel compelled to express themselves in the medium in which their gifts lie,” she said. As a teenager already committed to a life in the arts, Ms. Potok said she was “deeply moved” by Asher Lev when she first read the book. Now, more than 20 years later, she said she still used the novel to prepare for her role.
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Life-Changing Ari Brand, the 28-year-old actor who portrays Asher from the age of six through young adulthood, confessed that he did not read the book until he won the leading role in the play’s early production in New Haven in March 2012. He said he understands why so many people tell him that the book changed their lives. “It speaks to the person who does not fit the mold. People who have no connection whatsoever to chassidism connect with the story,” he said. But at first reading, Mr. Brand was not one of them. He grew up in Greenwich Village in a family full of artists. His mother was an actress and singer; his father, who died when Mr. Brand was a young child, had been a gifted pianist. As a youngster, Ari Brand thought he would be a musician, too, although he was not sure if
he would devote himself to piano, guitar, or drums. “It was a very supportive environment,” he said. Familiar Story But, while performing in the play, he realized that his family also had a history with which Asher Lev would have been familiar: His Israeli-born father, Natan, had to struggle with his own Polish-born father, an Orthodox-Jewish surgeon, who did not appreciate the route his pianist son was determined to follow. “The play speaks to the discovery of who you are and the decision to be who you are. When you do that, people can get hurt,” said Mr. Brand. He said he found it particularly moving that Asher Lev does not relinquish his faith even if he must leave his neighborhood. “We are all products of nature and nurture, born with certain
talents that are nurtured or not depending on the culture surrounding us,” he said. The Painting And while the culture that nurtured Mr. Potok and Asher Lev discouragedgraphicart,Mr.Potok returnedtoitasanadult.Hisdaughter saidbeingpartoftheOff-Broadway production of her father’s work offered her a nostalgic reminder of her father’s paintings. “I remember his paintings on the walls of all the homes we lived in,” she said. Mrs. Potok said her home is still filled with his paintings, pastels, and charcoals. One of his paintings—a sharply angled abstract of a wildeyed woman surrounded by slats which could be window blinds—is called The Brooklyn Crucifixion, the work that scandalized Asher Lev’s family and community and made the artist an outcast in the neighborhood he loved. S.L.R.
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