DAVID BAZEMORE
a&e | THEATER PREVIEW
HISTORY LESSON: The play follows a writer, Jonathan (Jeremy Kahn, pictured center), on a pilgrimage with his grandfather (Adrian Sparks, right) through Ukraine to Trochenbrod, a shtetl that was converted into a ghetto during Nazi occupation. The two are helped along the way by Ukranian guide Alex (Matt Wolpe).
ETC PRESENTS
EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED A
s the generation that lived through Jonathan and Alex as they experience this World War II slowly ages out of exis- tour through history, also shows glimpses tence, memories of the conflict that of the war era of the 1940s and the original killed millions of soldiers, civilians, and Jewish community that existed on the land war prisoners, including those lost to the in the 1800s. “It’s an incredibly complex feat Holocaust, are more frequently rendered as to adapt such a novel and make the story artistic representations rather than firsthand dramatic for the stage,” explained Fox. A fan accounts. The war affected so many people all of Foer’s work, Fox described this adaptation over the world that stories of (by Simon Block) as capturing the era offer points of view as the novel’s “acerbic, ironic wit varied as the people who surand tone.” Kahn described the vived to tell their story. One show as a “sprawling journey such example is Ensemble across the Ukrainian counTheatre Company’s upcoming tryside” complemented by the production of Everything Is intimacy of the three men in Illuminated, a stage adaptathe car. tion of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Beyond the challenge of by Maggie Yates acclaimed novel of the same balancing comedy and pathos, name, directed by Jonathan there’s the varied linguistics Fox. across eras and characters to contend with. This play follows a young writer, Jona- “Every character uses language in a different than (Jeremy Kahn), on a pilgrimage road kind of way,” said Kahn. “My character has trip with his grandfather (Adrian Sparks) a very flowery way of speaking and often through Ukraine to return to Trochenbrod, examines his own language as he’s using it; a long-ago shtetl that was converted into a Alex has a more ‘creative’ use of the English ghetto during Nazi occupation. Jonathan’s language. The grandfather uses words spargrandfather was housed there and subse- ingly, and the characters from centuries past quently saved from annihilation by a woman have their own way of speaking. That tonal lost to time. Their Ukrainian guide, Alex shift is a challenge in acting, and it can be jar(Matt Wolpe), provides a dramatically differ- ring for an audience to experience that shift.” ent worldview (and comic foil) to Jonathan’s Other challenges include a canine characAmerican college student. “It’s very funny ter and the road-trip vehicle onstage. “We’re in some parts, and very dark and gripping not looking at it as realism, but as hints of in some parts,” said Fox, who describes Act realism,” Fox said. “It’s a landscape littered I as a bizarre road trip through the Ukraine, with representation: stacks of books, piles of and Act II as the reckoning with the ghosts shoes, that sort of thing.” This is an important piece for Fox, who, of the past. “There are moments where characters as the artistic director of Ensemble Theatre recount the horrors they experienced during Company and a fan of Foer’s work, is pleased the Holocaust,” said Fox, “but at one point, to present the Southern California premiere Alex says to Jonathan, ‘You think you guys of this show. Fox hopes Everything Is Illumiare the only ones who have suffered; there are nated will inspire connection between the people suffering today.’ … The story is larger audience and their own personal history, as than the Holocaust.” Similarly, Kahn encour- well as with the experiences of those around ages audiences to think of Everything Is Illu- them in realization of the grander tapestry minated as more than a play about the Jewish of human history across the world — much experience: “It’s not just a Jewish story,” he in the way that Jonathan discovers his own said. “It’s about how everyone has the right to history, one that is intertwined with the hislive, and the right to live in the way that they tories of Alex, a man from the other side of do without having to apologize for it.” the world, and his grandfather, a man from Foer’s novel, which follows the stories of a different time.
STAGE ADAPTATION EXPLORES
AFTEREFFECTS OF WWII
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Ensemble Theatre Company presents Everything Is Illuminated April 11-28 at the New Vic. Call 965-5400 or see ensembletheatre.com.
Ballroom This weekend !
at the Lobero April 13 -14 lobero.org
Season Sponsors: Tim Mikel, Margo Cohen-Feinberg and Robert Feinberg Ballroom Sponsor: The Mosher Foundation Modern Masters Sponsor: Andre Yew Additional Funding: Barbara Burger, Paul E. Munch, and Lillian Lovelace
Modern Masters at the New Vic May 10-11 statestreetballet.com l 805 965 5400 INDEPENDENT.COM
APRIL 11, 2019
THE INDEPENDENT
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