Theatre in Review: Remember This Trick (Target Margin Theater)

	Yehuda L. Hyman. Photo: Justin J. Wee

I often think each theatre season has a theme of its own, offering proof that artists always have their ears to the ground, sussing out what's going on underneath the surface of daily life. Still, nothing could prepare for the extraordinary concentration of recent plays about Jews and antisemitism: Just for Us, King of the Jews, I Can Get It for You Wholesale, Sabbath's Theater, Amid Falling Walls, Sad Boys in Harpyland, Harmony, Prayer for the French Republic, Our Class, and The Ally. Even Gutenberg! The Musical! got in on the action. And, of course, in Spamalot, there's an entire musical number devoted to the proposition that you can't succeed on Broadway unless you have some Jews. Months before the Hamas atrocity, the invasion of Gaza, and the battles on campuses nationwide, playwrights, directors, and other theatre-makers seemingly felt a tremor that would crack wide open, leading to an anguished national debate that may have consequences for Joe Biden's re-election.

Funnily enough, the number in Spamalot, a nightly showstopper, sounds rather like one of the whispered slurs heard in Remember This Trick. "The theatrical business, of course, as everyone knows, is exclusively Jewish," someone insinuates. "Play-producing, booking, theatre operation are all in the hands of Jews." Others in a chorus of bigots assert that the same is true of motion pictures, ready-made clothing, shoemaking, jewelry, and the Colorado smelting industry. The last one, I feel, is a stretch, but you get the idea; for as long as the world has existed, Jews have been the eternal other, rumored to have secret powers that somehow never seem to protect them from prejudice or threats to their survival.

A company-created piece, Remember This Trick draws on a library's worth of material, beginning with the Biblical story of Esther and including the work of anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff, Holocaust testimonies, popular tunes, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Henry Ford's antisemitic fulminations, and a mare's nest of smears, rumors, and dark fantasies from the cobwebbed minds of online conspiracists, Jew-haters, and Tucker Carlson. It's a theatrical collage that begins with a card trick, which, in the finale, is repeated in one of the death camps. It's a theatrical collage, a flurry of allusions, quotations, and storytelling, probing a single question: Are Jews ever truly safe anywhere in this world?

In a way, the Esther story is the ideal vehicle for the production's concerns: A young Jewish woman imported into the King of Persia's harem, winning the monarch's hand without revealing her religion, and, guided by her watchful cousin Mordecai, saving her people from scheming functionaries bent on committing genocide. In Remember This Trick, this tale is filled out with snippets of material from many sources: elderly Californians looking back at their lives, second-generation Americans fearful of revealing too much about themselves, and thoughts about the psychological burden of the Holocaust for subsequent generations. Each item advances the case that, even in America, Jews live in a perpetual state of uncertainty, never knowing for sure when the tide will turn against them. In one particularly revealing passage, the cast performs the 1915 number "Cohen Owes Me Ninety-Seven Dollars," in which "Old Man Rosenthal," on his deathbed, urges one of his adult children to collect all his outstanding debts, adding, "If you promise me, my son, you'll collect from ev'ry one/I can die with a smile on my face." "Irving Berlin wrote this song!" someone shouts in disbelief, adding, "The Jew who wrote 'White Christmas'." The ironies are almost too many to count.

And yet, what is not said in Remember This Trick is that "Cohen Owes Me Ninety-Seven Dollars" was popularized by Belle Baker, one of several sassy, bawdy female Jewish entertainers who prospered in the early twentieth century. Like Sophie Tucker and Fanny Brice, Baker leaned into her identity, repackaging stereotypes for the entertainment of Jewish audiences. She's one of a long line: Without Baker and the other abovementioned ladies, there would be no Bette Midler or Barbra Streisand, or, probably, Totie Fields and Joan Rivers. This line of thought could lead us down a rabbit hole, contemplating how much American drama, music, and literature have been enriched by Jewish artists. But that's the thing about this piece: The constant flow of personal accounts, fragments of history, and innuendo bristle with arresting bits but they often lack context. The overall argument rings true but feels a bit thin; missing are the many qualifiers that would complicate the picture.

Also, the Esther narrative, one of the more convoluted chapters of the Old Testament, doesn't benefit from being presented in piecemeal fashion. Unless you are already conversant with it, you may find it hard to follow here and again, much context is missing that might otherwise explain the internecine politics that drive the action. (I could refer you to Esther and the King, the 1960 epic in which Richard Egan, as the dishiest ruler in all antiquity, looks deeply into Joan Collins' immaculately shadowed eyes and says, "Don't think of me as a king in a palace but a man who loves you." On second thought, maybe not; we're looking for clarity, after all.)

It might be helpful if the director, David Herskovits, exercised more oversight on the staging, emphasizing certain points rather than letting one episode melt into another. As it stands, the action tends to drift. The cast -- Danny Bryck, Zoë Geltman, Yehuda L. Hyman, Sarah Suzuki, Mari Vial-Golden, and "sound demon" Jesse Freedman -- is exceptionally nimble, stepping in and out of various characters with remarkable ease. Barbara Samuels' set design is a whimsical landscape featuring a chandelier of shimmering plastic as well as bleachers decorated in brightly colored and/or floral prints. (I'm still meditating on the blue octopus clinging to a ceiling beam; a metaphor?) Still, I wonder if her lighting, which tends toward broad washes, might not add a stronger sense of direction to the proceedings. Beth Goldenberg's costumes include a set of ensembles featuring payot, cigars, and hats decorated with Stars of David, as well as giant plaster heads right out of a Purim celebration. It's worth showing up early to catch the playlist of songs contributed by Herskovits, also the sound designer, which includes zippy Yiddish renditions of "Tea for Two," "L'Chaim," "My Way," "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," and "Mame."

I don't mean to be overly critical of Remember This Trick, which has many captivating passages; indeed, I might not be having the above thoughts were they not stimulated by the piece's provocative argument. But I think it could be made more strongly. The history being investigated is uncommonly rich; there's much more story to tell. Nevertheless, this production adds something substantial to the dialogue that has consumed so much of the theatre season. --David Barbour