A Family Faces The Music in New Off-Broadway Play

You are cordially invited to an engagement party.

As the Stein family gathers on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to celebrate, an unexpected guest—a pro-Palestinian organizer at Harvard—arrives courtesy of their youngest son. Like many a gathering of relatives, the joyful occasion becomes a platform for reopening old wounds, exposing buried secrets, and confronting divisions that aren’t easily overcome.

“I had a strong personal connection to the subject,” says playwright Debbie Goodstein, an award-winning filmmaker whose work has also appeared on television and who is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. “Many years pre-October 7^th, I was seeing what was happening on college campuses, and my kids were being affected by what they were hearing. That was where I first thought maybe there’s a play in here, then I started thinking about how there were so many parallels to “Fiddler on the Roof”. Then October 7th happened, and I realized I had to write the play.”

Of its setting, she made clear: “The Upper West Side has always been a hub of Judaism; a place with Jewish identity, liberal politics, intellectual life, and New York culture all together, so it felt like a natural home for this family.”

In this modern-day version of the 1967 Sidney Poitier classic, “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?” all three generations of Steins come to grips with how to remain a family when loved ones no longer share the same worldview. This, while they are watched over by a mysterious blue violinist—a character inspired by Tevye, the milkman and father whose anthem, “If I Were A Rich Man,” is one of the highlights of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

Goodstein says, “It’s a family story more than anything else, and I think that’s what gives it accessibility. Everybody can relate to a family getting together and having different views, and it getting explosive. We deal with the relationships more than anything else and how those relationships can become a threat.”

The show’s award-winning director, Jonathan Silverstein, explains, “Jews bring so many ancient traditions and stories and rituals, which create a lot of conflict in this play.”

Upon seeing the script for the first time, it raised such big questions that he became “really excited about the challenge of showing that on stage and keeping it personal,” and agreed with Goodstein that the real heart of the play is family.

“I found it really refreshing to see the political used in this personal way. The tie-in adds a level of theatricality and a level of surrealism that I love.” Silverstein also points out the importance of the trope of bringing the outsider in and what that does to a family. “Debbie has done an amazing job of really showing the different generations represented in this play, and how that bumps up against one another.” Both spoke at length about incorporating the spirit of Tevye into the story.

“Tevye’s greatest issue was that he was trying to keep his family together in the midst of the world trying to pull them apart,” explains Goodstein. “I think both the parents in this particular piece embody him. How do they continue to give their children the values that they think are important, but allow them to have differences of opinion, and how [the parents’] fears play a part. A couple of generations removed from Tevye, but a very similar struggle.”

“He represents the soul of the Jewish people and everything they’ve passed down from one generation to the next,” says Silverstein. Rather than having an actor play the violinist, the director made the bold and innovative creative choice to have him represented symbolically by a Chagall painting.

For as much emotional intensity as the show offers, it also boasts a great deal of humor.

Silverstein points out, “Jews are known to use humor to get through tough times. What I love about this script is that there are a lot of passionate people talking very intelligently and joking intelligently. They have a lot of love for one another, and the disagreements that they have cause some of those more heartrending moments in the play.”

The playwright and the director also credit the cast with giving heart to the story.

Goodstein says, “The actors have been amazing. I love working in a collaborative way with them, and they all are taking their roles very seriously and have amazing input. It’s only made these characters more lifelike and real.”

But of course, there are challenges. Silverstein cites a dream sequence in the midst of the action, a big wedding scene, a lot of food choreography, and mostly making sure politics does not overshadow the story. “Even as one talks about politics, it always has to come from a human voice dealing with human relationships.”

Goodstein referenced a quote that’s prevalent throughout the show. “It’s from [the Jewish sage] Hillel [the Elder]: ‘If I’m not for myself, who will be for me, and if I’m only for myself, what am I?’” She wants the audience to think about how that relates to them and how we all have to strike a balance for ourselves. “Finding the right balance, not necessarily leaving agreeing, but leaving with these important questions about the world and the future and how we maintain our values, and at the same time, how we maintain our compassion for people with other opinions.”

Adds Silverstein, “I want the audience to be moved by the story of this family and see how political challenges come up, but that ultimately, we are a family. How can we respectfully move forward and not lose our humanity?”

“The Blue Violinist Over West End Avenue,” October 28 - December 5 Theater Row (Theatre Five), located at 410 West 42nd Street.

Lorraine Duffy Merkl is the author of the novel “The Last Single Woman In New York City.”