Molly (Molly Ranson) joins Charles Benhamou (Jeff Seymour, center) and his son Daniel (Yair Ben-Dor) in making doughnuts for Chanukah in Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic.
Issues of Jewish identity, religion, heritage and oppression are given a fresh spin in Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic, a work of considerable length and intellectual heft. Harmon has set his drama in France, America’s oldest ally, which shares its values. Although it is a country closer geographically and emotionally to the harrowing experience inflicted on Jews by World War II and the Holocaust, it stands in for the United States as well. Incidents of anti-Semitism have increased in both countries in the last decade.
Molly has a heart-to-heart with her distant cousin Elodie Salomon (Francis Benhamou, right).
Interweaving two time periods, Harmon creates a family tapestry. In 2016, Molly (Molly Ranson), a young American woman, is visiting relatives in Paris. The chief welcomer is a distant cousin, Marcelle Salomon Benhamou (Betsy Aidem). The tone is comic as Molly, a non-practicing Jew, tries to sort out her blood ties to these cousins, the Salomons. She learns that Marcelle’s family—with the exception of her brother, Patrick (Richard Topol)—keep certain Jewish customs, yet they are far from Orthodox.
Marcelle’s daughter, Elodie (Francis Benhamou), is a young woman of lackluster energy and adamant beliefs, while Marcelle’s husband, the Algerian native Charles Benhamou (Jeff Seymour), is easygoing and cool-headed, in spite of an attack on their son Daniel (Yair Ben-Dor), who has recently begun practicing his ancient faith in earnest. The Benhamou name can’t disguise his Jewishness when he insists on wearing a yarmulke in public.
Patriarch Pierre Salomon (Pierre Epstein) gives advice to Elodie and Charles.
The Benhamou family’s drama is interwoven with that of Salomon ancestors: In flashbacks to 1944–46, Adolphe and Irma, great-grandparents of Marcelle and Patrick, have escaped deportation by a stroke of luck. Says Patrick, stepping forth to introduce them (in one of several direct addresses, which include didactic yet fascinating dives into the oppression of Jews throughout history): “Irma and Adolphe spent the war in their apartment in Paris, untouched.”
Nonetheless, their family suffers. Their daughter fled to safety in Cuba, but their sons Robert and Lucien, and Lucien’s family, were arrested and taken away. Ensconced in the Paris apartment, Adolphe invents stories of their being in the mountains that ring false, but then, in 1946, a hardened Lucien (Ari Brand) and his son Pierre do return, the only survivors. Yet although Pierre (Peyton Lusk, superbly conveying his trauma) says, “My sisters were killed meters from where I stood,” he remains an optimist. In old age (Pierre Epstein, making a late but forceful entrance in the 3¼-hour drama) he views existence as a triumph: “Three-fourths of French Jews survived. You know what a high percentage that is? It was so much worse in Poland, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Greece.”
In 2016 in France the family’s luck, such as it was, is tested again. Attacks on Jews and the rise of the right-wing National Front headed by Marine Le Pen, who absolves the nation of the deportation of Jews, have sparked a militancy in Elodie. Patrick pooh-poohs the idea that Le Pen could win in a democratic France. “Uncle Patrick, you're smarter than that,” says his infuriated niece. “Is it actually inconceivable to you that a democratic nation could elect a monster?” The resonance of the question extends to the United States in 2016 as well. Harmon, through the prism of modern France, is also addressing the dangers to democracy in America.
Nancy Robinette and Kenneth Tigar play Irma and Adolphe Salomon, French Jews surviving World War II in their Paris apartment. Photographs by Matthew Murphy.
Director David Cromer elicits excellent performances from the cast: Nancy Robinette’s stubbornness as Irma is inherited by Marcelle and Patrick. The struggle of the modern Salomon-Benhamou clan takes place over a year and involves clear but shifting allegiances and clashes. Early on, Molly describes herself as of “Jewish extraction,” and Daniel pounces: “In my experience, people who say things like, of Jewish extraction, are actually more dogmatic about religion than religious people, so I try to avoid the subject with those who clearly have disdain for—me.” Yet as a relationship with Molly develops, his attraction to her becomes a flashpoint in the family.
Ultimately, Marcelle and her family make a life-changing choice. Harmon’s ending feels a bit imposed, as a poetic litany of Jewish intellectuals and Jewish suffering and Christian oppression is recited. They will start over and leave behind the grand piano in their living room, one handed down through five generations—selling pianos is the family business. “In homes all across France, children learn to play on pianos from our stores,” Pierre says. The symbol of culture and civility is a luxury that must be abandoned by a family struggling for its survival.
Manhattan Theatre Club’s production of Prayer for the French Republic runs through March 27 at New York City Center Center Stage I (131 W. 55th St.). Evening performances are at 7 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday and 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday; matinees are at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. For tickets and information, call the box office at (212) 581-1212 or visit manhattantheatreclub.com.
