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Regional Reviews: St. Louis Prayer for the French Republic Also see Richard's review of Dead Man's Cell Phone
The three-hour production (with two intermissions) weaves a Shoah tale in and out of a modern sense of danger at The New Jewish Theatre, directed with a juggler's grace by Rebekah Scallet. Mr. Harmon also wrote Bad Jews from 2012, and some of the same emotional explosiveness surfaces regularly in this play, first staged by Manhattan Theatre Club in 2022. Prayer is much more naturalistic, ironically funny, and quietly sentimental in its great Paris apartments. And it feels a lot less like getting your hand caught in a meat-grinder than Bad Jews did at this same theater where I saw it in late 2015. Prayer for the French Republic won the Drama Desk award for Outstanding Play in 2022, and was presented on Broadway in 2023. Assimilation has crept in slowly, in ways the Salomon-Benhamou clan barely understands, until anti-Semitic violence snaps out them of their idyll in 2016. One hundred and sixty years earlier, the Salomons' ancestors set down roots with a chain of French piano shops, and the family business became its own sort of religion for them all. Much later, under the weight of history, "they hate us" grows into a panicked roar, in fear of a new set of rabble-rousers in French politics. Evidence to support the Salomons' sectarian fear becomes clear right in scene one. Lilah Kreis is delightfully electric as Molly, an American cousin spending weekends with the family in her gap year of 2016-17. Her aunt and uncle (stoic Jenni Ryan and perfectly nuanced Dave Cooperstein, as Marcelle and Charles) long ago took up medicine and teaching as the family's piano shop began its drift into memory. But everything changes in the moments after Molly's arrival, when Bryce A. Miller (excellent as her cousin Daniel) enters with a huge shiner, courtesy of some thugs in the street. The elegant setting is by David Blake, with what seems like every colorful stage light in town hung overhead, thanks to lighting designer Heather Reynolds. It's a big help in an increasingly dark story that's also brightened with wit and comic madness by Hailey Medrano as Daniel's manic-depressive sister Elodie. If you're going to put a cataclysmic discussion of politics and religion on stage, you're going to need someone as smart and funny as she is. I was sure that Ms. Medrano's big bar scene with Ms. Kreis, halfway through, would get a big round of applause the night I went. Both actresses are thrilling. But, as we used to say in these parts, opening night audiences often seem tired. John Wilson is light and breezy as Patrick Salomon, Molly's other French uncle and the narrator. He rotates a baby grand piano with the touch of a hand to indicate modern day or flashback. Bill Stine is outstanding as Adolphe, Patrick and Marcelle's great grandfather in the mid-1940s. And NJT matriarch Kathleen Sitzer becomes wonderfully metaphysical as his wife Irma in her final moments on stage. When Lucien, their long-lost son, returns after the war, she's deeply confounded by his evasiveness. The piano store gives hope and happiness, even as the major faiths seem like an invitation to despair. Adam Flores, as Lucien, gives a textbook lesson in PTSD, having survived a Polish concentration camp with his very quiet son Pierre (Ben Hammock). And Bob Harvey is elfin magic as the much older version of Pierre in act three (with actor Will Shaw set to stand-in for him in the show's second weekend). Mr. Harvey, as the ancient patriarch, is elegant in a suit by costumer Michele Friedman Siler, and we gawk at him with confounded reverence. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder itself becomes like the fading paper hung on hundred-year old walls in the play's modern scenes, as the characters reflect upon our time's angry leaders exploiting age-old rivalries. Elodie and Daniel and their parents lash out at one another over their futures, as if each new provocation must be made the last. A sense of place and tradition becomes a maze to get lost in, rather than a path to salvation. And in her first meeting with the young American, Marcelle (the French mother) tries to explain the family's entire history, till it turns into a great cultural riddle even to her. In the show's final moments, she holds a guest key in her hand once more, as wandering seems inevitable.
Prayer for the French Republic, runs through May 3, 2026, at The New Jewish Theatre, #2 Millstone Campus Drive, St. Louis MO. For tickets and information, please visit jccstl.com/arts-ideas/new-jewish-theatre/. Cast (2016-17): Cast (1944-46): Understudies: Production Staff: Additional Production Staff: * Denotes Member, ActorsÂ’ Equity Association |
