Theatre in Review: On the Other Side of the River (New Worlds Theatre Project/HERE)New Worlds Theatre Project is devoted to reclaiming works from the Yiddish theatre and presenting them in English. It's a fascinating, laudable mission and if its stated goal -- "to see these plays produced on mainstream stages across the globe alongside translations of Chekhov, Ibsen, and others for generations to come" -- seems a tad ambitious, well, why not? For all we know, there may be dozens of lost gems waiting to be brought to light. However, this interesting company, which has been around since 2005, is not putting its best foot forward with its current production. On the Other Side of the River is by Peretz Hirshbein, who was known as the "Yiddish Maeterlinck." This means you can expect plenty of mood and abundant symbols as opposed to psychological realism or a well-constructed plot. Fair enough, but if this murky exercise in life-and-death abstractions is typical of Hirshbein's work, it may just as well be left on the shelf. On the Other Side of the River begins with the elderly Menashe and his granddaughter, Mir'l, whose rustic home is threatened by rising waters from the nearby river. Mir'l's mother died giving birth, and the girl is protected by a magic amulet. The flood carries them away and Menashe dies, but Mir'l is saved by a mysterious stranger who apparently drags her back to life by pulling her away from Menashe's corpse and warming her with his embrace. Later, we see Mir'l with her grandmother, Yakhne. The young woman is so desperate to break away and find the stranger again that she tosses the amulet and throws herself into the river. Whatever all this means, I cannot say. For reasons never fully disclosed, Mir'l is apparently in need of protection -- the meaning of the amulet is never made clear -- and the stranger is seemingly a representative of both life and death. He saves her from dying with Menashe and yet he also inspires her to act suicidally. He may or may not be the holy man who came through before, of whom Menashe says, "He blessed us with one hand and cursed us with the other." Because Hirshbein had little interest in characterization, none of these questions feels especially urgent, and, thanks to the declamatory dialogue, the atmosphere created is damp and clanky rather than mysterious or darkly compelling. Could On the Other Side of the River be made more gripping? The question is not answered in Shannon Sindelar's production, which seems almost perversely determined to alienate the audience. It can't be easy to put on a play with stage directions that command "Menashe opens the door, the water pours into the house, the wind howls, the door is open, the wind blows out the candle." But the director's approach keeps the characters at such a distance that it is well-nigh impossible to care if they float away altogether. The first two thirds of the evening one must deal with the distracting performance of David Greenspan as Menashe. (A side note: Greenspan is the hardest-working man in theatre these days, appearing in this production, which has a 7pm curtain and a 60-minute running time, then hopping over to the Lucille Lortel, where he has a most effective turn as an enigmatic therapist in the final scene of Punk Rock.) This is hardly the first time that Greenspan has seemed to stand outside his character, but this is an extreme example. He delivers his lines as if he hardly believes them, using gestures so artificial that they appear to come from the old Delsarte method of oratory, which applied specific movements to certain words and gestures. Furthermore, Sindelar makes rather strange use of Patrick Rizzotti's set, which includes a proscenium and two walls covered with swatches of crinkly, diaphanous white fabric. At first glance, it looks like an array of meringues, but the fabric takes the light interestingly, and it proves to be an intriguingly diffusive surface for Bart Cortright's aquatic-themed video projections. But that's no reason to keep Mir'l behind the wall, barely visible, for most of the first third. And it is certainly no reason to play the entire final scene behind the wall, forcing us to squint to see actors who can barely be perceived behind the projections and fabrics. It's like watching a play through veils; I don't recommend it. Anyway, Jane Cortney works had to evoke Mir'l's various stages of anguish, and she is a striking enough presence to make one eager to see her under different circumstances. As The Stranger, who is written as a walking enigma, David Arkema struggles to be, you know, mysterious, but he has nothing to work with, so he comes off as a standard stage juvenile. Because we never get a good look at Christine Siracusa, as Yakhne, Mir'l's grandmother, until the curtain call, it's hard to have anything to say about her performance. Nick Solyom's lighting, when not dealing with the scenery, creates strong, interesting looks that carve the actors out of the darkness. M. Meriwether Snipes' costumes are perfectly okay. The most evocative contribution comes from Erik T. Lawson, the sound designer and composer, who does more than everyone else put together to create a mise-en-scène that includes the sounds of rushing water, ice floes striking the house, barely heard voices, and birdsong. But the most one can take away from On the Other Side of the River is the distinct possibility that Peretz Hirshbein isn't the most revivable playwright from the Yiddish theatre's golden age. At the end of a long, long hour, I felt merely waterlogged.--David Barbour 
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