Sunday, February 10, 2008
A+E, Theater

Bittersweet farewell

‘Hard Love’ proves difficult to embrace

By Bert Osborne
 
Preconceived notions are a no-no in my line of work, and now I see why. I walked into a preview of Jewish Theatre of the South’s “Hard Love” thinking I knew exactly what I was going to write. At the very least, I wanted to play it up as a swan song for Mira Hirsch, who co-stars in the drama—or, at most, as a crowning achievement in her 13 years as its founding artistic director. That’s because she’s leaving and JTS is disbanding at the end of this season (after one more production, “The Last Schwartz”), due to “creative differences” with the powers-that-be at the Marcus Jewish Community Center (under whose auspices the troupe operates). Between her commitment to more challenging material and their interest in more mainstream fare—duh—what serious theatergoer wouldn’t come to Hirsch’s defense?
 
The most shocking revelation about “Hard Love,” director Susan Reid’s erratic staging of a cumbersome two-character play by Motti Lerner, is how it accidentally persuades you to cut the Marcus “suits” some slack and try looking at things from their side. Will anyone flock to see such a dour show, and what will they get from it if they do? Maybe that isn’t for me to ask, since I’m not Jewish. But I’ve never been Jewish, and in my many years covering the company, not once have I felt that to be a disadvantage in appreciating its work—until now.
 
Hannah (Hirsch) and Zvi (Chris Kayser) were briefly wed as teens (until their child was stillborn). She stayed behind to lead an “ultra-Orthodox” life in Jerusalem, while he abandoned his faith to become a novelist in Tel Aviv. Two decades later, they rekindle their lost love, which develops with all the emotional complexity and dramatic subtlety of rattling off a bunch of rules and regulations about why they can or can’t do this or that. It proves to be so much spiritual overload, a burden these shaky characters are powerless to support. Reid (“Brooklyn Boy”) only aggravates matters, randomly tossing in chords of melancholy music mid-scene, signifying nothing.
 
I’m not sure any two actors could plausibly play this on-again/off-again relationship. When Zvi first suggests picking up where they left off, Hannah’s still married to a much older man. By the time she’s ready to talk remarriage, Zvi’s got a younger girlfriend. They both have teenage children by others and—sure enough—when Zvi approves of their dating, Hannah doesn’t, and when she’s pushing for the kids to get married, he’s having second thoughts. There’s a 10-minute span late in the play when Zvi goes from being down on one knee and promising Hannah to keep a “kosher home,” to standing over her demanding she renounce every iota of religious conviction.
 
Of course, had any of us known this was to be Hirsch’s last JTS performance, we might’ve hoped for something further removed from her most recent roles in “The Immigrant” and “Brass Birds Don’t Sing.” Mark my words, though: A year or so from now, however commercially refocused the Marcus theater program, it’s only going to take a couple of Neil Simon comedies to have me waxing nostalgic for those bygone days of the Mira Hirsch era—“Hard Love” and all. SP