Marylebone Theatre – 30 May 2025
Reviewed by Claire Roderick
3***
Shimmy Braun’s emotional play is based on characters and experiences from his life in the orthodox Jewish community. Ari Freed (Ilan Galkoff) introduces himself to the audience and warns them that even though he’ll make them laugh, this is a tragedy. The play opens in a synagogue, at Ari’s funeral after he took his own life aged eighteen.
Ari’s struggles growing up gay in his Brooklyn community are relayed through his narration and flashback scenes. We see the first time his father called him a faygele (the Yiddish term for a homophobic slur) when he disapproves of his body language posing for photos at his bar mitzvah and the next five years unfold explaining the inevitable path to suicide (a term with no direct Yiddish equivalent). Ari’s father (Ben Caplan) is a therapist who has daddy issues of his own and is repeating the cycle of belligerence and bullying in his family life whilst maintaining a wholesome image in public. Ari’s mother (Clara Francis) has been pregnant for most of her adult life, with Ari being the oldest of eleven children, with another on the way. Exhausted and distracted, her attempts to stand up for Ari against his father are dwindling, just as Ari’s behaviour is escalating and he needs her most.
Ari’s openness about his sexuality leads to him being used by the older students at school, and when they are found in the act, it is Ari who is expelled. These early encounters and his emotional difficulties with his father cause him to seek out older men for sexual encounters and the levels of hypocrisy amongst the men in his community are revealed – again, it is Ari who is vilified. His only real confidantes who appear to have no agenda but to help him are Sammy (Yiftach Mizrahi) who tried to live in the orthodox faith, married and had four children before finally coming out, and the kindly Rabbi Lev (Andrew Paul). But as Ari spirals and his impulsive reactions cause everyone to turn him away, Ari sees only one way out.
The cast are exceptional, with Ilan Galkoff electric as the tragic Ari.
The story is told through narration by Ari to the audience, or in vignettes from his life punctuated by music and scenery shifting. As Ari jumps in and out of the scene, running off stage sobbing as a fifteen-year-old and then re-entering as the cool narrator to make snarky comments, the pace never settles into a comfortable rhythm, but this could be director Hannah Chissick’s aim – we know the ending, so it’s the events on the journey that must keep us off kilter and engaged.
Sammy’s situation echoes writer Shimmy Braun’s life, and this character seems the most grounded and rounded compared to the more stereotypical parents and rabbi. The scene where Sammy confronts Rabbi Lev over his assumptions and prejudices is beautifully written, thoughtful and powerful as Sammy challenges Lev’s adherence to Leviticus. The absurdist portrayal of Sammy’s use of the parable of the turkey prince, showing a rabbi guiding an outsider back to God with gentle steps, to reach Lev, is a huge change of tone that will probably split audiences, but I enjoyed it. Rabbi Lev is written as a man trying to find a way in this world he can never quite understand to help kindness shine – Andrew Paul’s expression as Lev stays up late and watches interviews with gay orthodox Jews who had to leave their community is a heartbreaking mix of confusion and shame.
This heartbreaking story resonates far beyond the Jewish community. Ari’s struggle for acceptance and need for unconditional love surrounded by uncompromising and judgemental people is one that is instantly recognisable to the LGBTQ community. Shimmy Braun’s insightful and impassioned play shows exciting potential.