With “The Ally,” playwright Itamar Moses clarifies with laser precision the dilemma facing liberal American Jews largely because of Israel. But the play takes wider aim as well, exploring some of the most charged issues roiling college campuses these days. If the play starts off feeling like a comedy about a well-meaning if uninvolved character who gets roped into allyship, Moses is unafraid to turn his entertainment into an intellectual debate, each of the seven characters articulating (and embodying) a different point of view, while the play itself largely avoids taking sides.
“The Ally” is much-needed, timely theater, but it isn’t completely up-to-date: Written before the October 7 2023 massacre of Israelis by Hamas and subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza, it’s set in September, 2023. So much has intensified in the last few months that “The Ally” could almost feel like a period piece, a time when people who sharply disagreed could still talk to one another.
Josh Radnor portrays Asaf Sternheim, a character whose biography has much in common with Itamar Moses himself, a playwright probably best-known as the Tony-winning librettist of the musical “The Band’s Visit.” Asaf is a playwright and adjunct professor of writing who grew up in Berkeley, California, the son of immigrants from Israel, and a member of a Jewish youth group who “practiced the acoustic-guitar-based variety of Judaism, where you go into the woods and sign egalitarian versions of the prayers and try to hook up with girls from the Central Valley named, like, Serena…”
Asaf recently moved out of New York and back to the (unnamed) city where he went to school, because his wife Gwen Kim (Joy Osmanski) was offered a job at his alma mater as an administrator for community relations. Concerned that Asaf is stressed out because his writing is not going well and he has little else going on other than a once-a-week teaching gig, Gwen suggests that he become involved in some local activities.
“What, like take a spin class or join a book club?” Asaf scoffs.
“Well it would be nice if it were something for which you were not preemptively dripping with contempt.”
As it happens, he is about to get more involved in local activities than he intended.
A student from his writing class has requested a meeting. Asaf assumes it’s to get a recommendation or career advice, but Baron Prince (Elijah Jones) is seeking an ally in the protest of the police killing of Baron’s cousin, which was captured on video. Baron asks Asaf to sign a long “manifesto” – which, as it turns out, is written by one Nakia Clark (Cherise Boothe), a local community organizer. Twenty years earlier, Nakis was Asaf’s girlfriend. Yes, this is one of several unlikely coincidences/convergences in the plot, but such contrivances are readily forgiven, because they help turn what could have been simply a series of abstract political debates into something more personal and engaging, allowing moments of humor even during the most contentious of disagreements. It is also through his talk about his former relationship with Nakia that the play introduces the tensions facing a Jew who supports progressive causes; he recalls one of her activist friends making an antisemitic comment after 9/11 that contributed to their breakup.
Deep into the manifesto against local police brutality are a couple of sentences opposing American involvement in “the apartheid state of Israel.” Asaf has qualms about Israel being singled out in this way, which he airs in (fascinating) detail with his wife. One of the central debates threaded throughout the play is how much various progressive causes should or should not be linked together. Ultimately, Asaf signs the manifesto, in part because he wants to support his student, in part because he disagrees with much of the right-wing Israeli government’s policies, and in part because showing his solidarity with the community would help Gwen in her job, which involves convincing the local community to accept the expansion of the university into yet another neighborhood.
Because he’s signed the manifesto, two more students seek him out, Farid El Masry (Michael Khalid Karadsheh), a member of Students for Palestinian Justice and Rachel Klein (Madeline Weinstein), a former member of the Jewish Student Union, asking him to become the faculty advisory for a new organization, in which Jewish students could invite speakers to the campus who are skeptical of Israel – which the established Jewish student organization has refused to allow. After much debate with himself (again), Asaf agrees.
Shortly afterward, he is confronted by Reuven Fisher (Ben Rosenfield), a PhD student in Jewish history and Judaic studies, who tries to convince Asaf he has made a mistake. His is a dazzling argument, mostly a monologue, nuanced, informed, passionate and persuasive (to those open to being persuaded), which includes an analysis and history not just of Israel and Israeli-Palestinian relations but of antisemitism.
“We Jews do have a long history,” Reuven says at the conclusion, which ends Act I. “A special tradition. It is of nodding sympathetically at the unhinged ravings of those who wish us dead. You’re a man of principle. And I respect that, I do. But I think you will find that you are being taken advantage of. By people who, in fact, hate you.”
I offer this excerpt, but no summary here could possibly do Reuven’s observations justice, just as I cannot adequately summarize the arguments on behalf of the Palestinians — equally nuanced, informed, passionate and persuasive (to those open to being persuaded) — delivered by Farid as Karadsheh in Act II. (Sample: “There is a whole parallel history you’ve chosen not to learn! You know nothing of our culture, it’s beauty, variety, depth. What spurs radicalization. Who benefits. ‘Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?’ they cry. ‘If they could only follow a leader like that!’ But there have been dozens. Hundreds. We have them now! Have you heard of Issa Amro? Jawad Siam? Nasser Nawaja? Peaceful activists, all. Routinely beaten, arrested, detained for protesting the theft or bulldozing of their own homes or for no cause at all!”)
“The Ally,” takes on a lot of issues besides just the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – free speech, police brutality, town-gown relations, Black-Jewish relations, gentrification, even (fleetingly) anti-Asian violence.
It’s a busy agenda, and director Lila Neugebauer oversees a production that showcases these issues rather than distracting from them — the set is little more than three chairs and a lamp; the actors avoid histrionics — while at the same trying to give equal weight (and equal humanity) to each character. Eventually, it becomes clear that the title can encompass more than one character; Farid, for example, views Baron as an ally.
But it’s easy to see that “The Ally” is ultimately from Asaf’s — Moses’ — point of view. When the other characters speak, they are speaking to him, often trying to persuade him, sometimes blaming him, or analyzing him. In another impressive monologue Baron discusses his own issues, and what he’s gotten out of witnessing the debates over Israel — “I’ve been listening. And I think I get why it’s complicated” — but what he doesn’t understand, he tells Asaf, is why “you feel like you have to choose.”
“The Ally” is in part Asaf’s psychological/political journey — from sitting around not knowing what to do with himself, to wanting to “sit at the progressive cool table” (as he puts it self-mockingly) to arguing actively with the others, revealing himself as just as informed….to sitting down, not knowing what to do.
The Ally
Public Theater through March 24
Running time: 2 hours and 35 minutes including one 15-minute intermission.
Tickets: $55-$70
Written by Itamar Moses
Directed by Lila Neugebauer
Scenic design by Lael Jellinek, costume design by Sarita Fellows, lighting design by Reza Behjat, sound design by Bray Poor, prop management by Claire M. Kavanah
Cast: Cherise Boothe as Nakia,Elijah Jones as Baron,Michael Khalid Karadsheh as Farid, Joy Osmanski as Gwen,Josh Radnor as Asaf, Ben Rosenfield as Reuven, and Madeline Weinstein as Rachel.
