Contemporary Theater of Dallas stages the Southwest premiere of Dallas playwright Miki Bone's new play, Division Avenue. It relates the story of Ephraim, a 27 year-old Hasidic Jew living with his family in the Williamsburg section of New York. Based on true events, the story relates the opposition of these ultra-orthodox Jews to the bicycle lanes built in their city. This encroachment into their way of life invites the outside world, including yuppies and hipsters, into their community. Ephraim is rebelling against the strict tenets of this sect of Judaism.
As the play opens, Ephraim has just completed shaving off his beard and sideburns (called payess, which are long curls). His parents are extremely upset about his defection from their way of life.
I must admit to my skepticism that this way of life existed in 2013 and thought surely Ms. Bone had researched a way of life in a bygone era; so I interviewed a Dallas-based Hasidic rabbi very familiar with the Hasidic Jews of Williamsburg, who assured me the attitudes and way of life depicted in Division Avenue are alive and well in 2013 Williamsburg. While Hasidic Jews reside in most major United States cities, there are only two such sects as the one depicted in the play; one is in Williamsburg and the other is near Williamsburg; they are called "satmar." They consider it sacrilege not to have an untrimmed beard and the above-described sideburns. They frown on educating girls to the same extent that boys are educated. Dating outside their religion is strictly prohibited, and women do not work outside the home.
Like any good play about a young man, there is a young woman, a social worker from outside the community who rides her bicycle into Williamsburg to visit a client in the building in which Ephraim and his family reside. Of course she and Ephraim meet and form a relationship, and, of course, she is not Jewish.
The play, while entertaining, is not yet ready for prime time for several reasons. For starters, the median number of children in a satmar family, according to the Hasidic rabbi I interviewed, is between eight and twelve. We never see any of Ephraim's siblings, not even a cameo of one dropping by to visit or even the mention that any other siblings exist.
The second problem is that in every scene in which Ephraim's mother is present, she is always ironing. Surely she must also cook or sew or sort and fold the clothes she is ironing. In addition neither Ephraim nor his father seem to have jobs; if so they are never mentioned, leaving one to wonder how they support themselves. The play has possibilities but still needs a lot of tweaking.
That being said, director Dean Nolen has assembled a talented cast. Ephraim (Jake Buchanan) portrays his role in a believable fashion, but again there is a problem: he can't decide whether or not to have an accent. This error should have been corrected by the director. Marianne Galloway is superb as Sarah, the social worker who forms a relationship with Ephraim. She and Nancy Sherrard as Ephraim's mother stand out from all the others. Edward Treminio is a promising actor in his role of the police officer, continuing his talented performance earlier this year as Joe Farkas in ICTs production of The Last Night of Ballyhoo.
Ian Ferguson is excellent in the role of Sarah's platonic, gay roommate; although he mispronounced the Hebrew blessing, a prayer said before eating bread (no doubt the fault of dialect coach Anne Schilling), and Ben Westfried as Ephraim's father, Moishe, is righteously indignant about the antics of his wayward son.
The play opens against a background of interminable cacophonous "music" which could better be eliminated without any damage to the play. The bridge "music" was equally annoying as were the intermittent sounds emitted from backstage.
Division Avenue is an interesting play if only to open our eyes to a way of life in the United States which most people probably never knew existed.
