'Birthright' Off-Broadway review — a profound exploration of Judaism and friendship

Read our review of Birthright off Broadway, the newest play written by Eureka Day Tony Award winner Jonathan Spector and directed by Teddy Bergman.

Summary

• Eureka Day writer Jonathan Specter returns to the stage with Birthright
• The cast includes Liz Larsen; Eli Gelb and Zoë Winters
• Performances run at MCC Theater through July

In Birthright, Chaya (Zoë Winters) does not, as her mother Deborah (a delightful Liz Larsen) will cheerfully tell you, have that many Jewish friends.

Deborah chatters away, elaborating on the feelings of alienation her shrewd daughter felt growing up going to a school with mostly non-Jews, and the tension between the cultural and social practices between conservative Jewish communities and Orthodox communities, which drives Chaya to befriend mostly non-Jewish people. But now, in 2006 when the nearly two-decade spanning play begins, she’s surrounded by a burgeoning intimacy between other young Jewish people after returning from a Birthright trip to Israel.

She hosts her childhood friend Izzy (Molly Bernard), the talkative polisci minded blogger Noah Noah (Eli Gelb), the aspiring musician Emerson (Nate Mann), the romantically naive but spiritually optimistic Alona (Molly Ranson), and the deeply empathetic and hungrily curious Lev (Hale Appleman) to discuss what they’ve experienced on the trip and, ultimately, to hopefully cultivate a long-lasting group of friends. More than friends, closer to family. Mishpucha.

Over the course of Jonathan Specter’s Birthright, the connective tissue that binds the group weakens and thins as they reconvene, with the play covering 2006, October 2016, and July 2024.

Dynamics change, closeness wanes, being able to see and understand one another is amplified, with their careers, family obligations, technology, politics, and relationship to Judaism itself framing these ebbs and flows in their intimacy and communication with one another. Gmail changes to Facebook changes to WhatsApp. Envy, desire, compassion, resentment, and virtue grow and shrink, become louder or more still as the world and the characters change. Noah launches his own website, Chaya works in the White House, Emerson burns out, Alona moves to Israel, Izzy goes into nonprofit work, Lev drops out of rabbinical school. Yet their reunions remain a constant, their occasionally messy family dynamics evergreen.

Specter orients his play not as agitprop or the final word on Israel/Palestine but more as an ensemble character study, a panorama of Jewish people with varying rituals, habits, and personal and political histories. It’s a show of people in diaspora forming their own memories not necessarily of Israel itself, but where they locate home and safety with one another. The Israel-Palestine conflict is less focal point and more an ambient part of their lives; it is a gash in a broad body that, over time, becomes nearly irreparably infected. When the group reunites after the attacks on October 7, Izzy and Chaya grab their phones, racing for an article or essay that proves their point.

The contradiction in their relationships – profound love and knotty disagreement, glibness and generosity – was really always part of their friendship.

While there is a diversity of opinion between the group on Israel (as it is now, and as it could be), Birthright eschews the impulse to treat the play, and this collective, as a rhetorical exercise with everyone representing some point of view or take — mostly for the better.

In its attempt to sketch an illustration of people whose cultural, religious, political, and national history has transformed dramatically over millennia and has been forced to “meet a moment” in the contemporary landscape, one hopes that more plays will extend such curiosity to other ethnic communities and diasporas facing similar experiences of scrutiny, rupture, and togetherness.

Birthright summary

Six friends who meet on a Birthright trip to Israel reunite every year, but must face the reality of how their relationships to Judaism and Israel — and to each other — change and deepen over nearly 20 years.

What to expect at Birthright

Birthright, running to 3 hours and 20 minutes, is split into three acts. The first act is ensemble, the second is a series of two-handers, and third follows each individual.

Who should see Birthright

• Specter has a keen interest in social milieus and their root in the personal history of his characters. He treats each character with openness and inquisitiveness. Theatregoers with a fondness for this kind of engaging approach, and those who enjoyed the playwright’s Eureka Day, will be duly rewarded.
• Fans of ensemble shows that generate the electricity of friends will enjoy the show's humor and drama, which is injected with honesty.
• The cast is excellent, especially Liz Larsen as Chaya’s warm and sometimes socially filterless mother. Larsen has a tenderness and familiarity that guides the entire show.

Learn more about Birthright

Though Specter joins a legion of playwrights reflecting in what it means to be Jewish in the contemporary political and social landscape (other recent examples include The Ally and Giant), his show achieves its richness by placing the group of friends not at a single point in history, but as part of a cycle of brokenness and repair that is as old as time itself.

Learn more and get Birthright tickets on New York Theatre Guide. Birthright is at MCC Theater through July 26.

Photo credit: Birthright off Broadway. (Photos by Emilio Madrid)