"A Letter to Harvey Milk" at the Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre
“A Letter to Harvey Milk” Book by Jerry James, Music by Laura Kramer, Lyrics by Ellen Schwartz Directed by David Schechter Reviewed by David Roberts, Chief Critic Theatre Reviews Limited
Retired Kosher butcher and widower Harry Weinberg (Jeff Keller) awakens his dead wife Frannie (Cheryl Stern) with his horrific nightmares. She hangs around (unfortunately) for the entirety of the musical “Letter to Harvey Milk” and it is through Harry’s conversations with the foil character Fannie that the plot of “A Letter to Harvey Milk” unfolds.
Harry signs up (reluctantly) for a writing course at his Community Center with Jewish lesbian Barbara Katsef (Leslie Kritzer) who recently experienced the loss of love. When Barbara asks Harry to help her preserve stories, she has no idea what she is asking him to do.
Barbara encourages Harry to write about what his normal day is like, what his work day was like, what a day was like when he was a boy and encourages him to focus on what he sees, what he feels, and what he remembers. After initially resisting, Harry begins to remember and begins to “see” and feel images he thought were buried in the past forever: his deep friendship with Harvey Milk (Michael Bartoli); his experiences in a Nazi Concentration Camp with his friend Yussl (brilliantly played by Ravi Roth).
What fascinates the audience about Harry is his deep affection for Barbara and his concern that she is too open about her sexual status and his equally deep affection for his slain friend Harvey Milk. Harry feels it was Harvey’s openness about his sexual status that resulted in his assassination: “Why did you have to be shot for being a fegelah?” To speak or not to speak Yiddish is a recurring theme throughout the musical.
Through a series of flashbacks, conversations with Barbara, and conversations with dead wife Frannie, the audience discovers the reason for Harry’s nightmares and his concerns for Barbara and why Frannie doesn’t what Harry to tell Barbara anything she “does not know.”
Jerry James unfolds exposition carefully, craftily, stealthily, so that just at the moment the audience believes it knows what’s next, James takes them down a different path. The reason for Harry’s letter to Harvey Milk is finally disclosed. When Harry was in the Concentration Camp, he met a gay prisoner whom he befriended and eventually slept with. This friend was killed after refusing to allow Harry to come to his defense, telling Harry he had to live to tell their story.
“A Letter to Harvey Milk” is an endearing musical with a book based on Leslea Newman’s short story of the same title. The ensemble cast handles the script and the music with ease and the performance is a celebration of the movement from silence to speaking out about all the things that matter from all the memories we treasure. It is unfortunate that James (and/or Newman) choose to have Frannie casually and humorously mention Hitler and the Nazis in reference to their deplorable acts of violence and the murder of gay men in the concentration camps. Even Harry knows that is too much.
A LETTER TO HARVEY MILK
WITH: Michael Bartoli; Sarah Corey; Jeff Keller; Leslie Kritzer; Michael Padgett; Ravi Roth; Cheryl Stern.
Presented by the New York Musical Theatre Festival and U Shld Kno Productions at The Alice Griffin Jewel Box Theatre, 480 West 42nd Street, New York, NY. Performance Schedule: Saturday July 28 at 5:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. For ticket information call 212-352-3101 or visit www.nymf.org
Permalink | Posted by David Roberts on Saturday, July 28, 2012
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