Theater Reviews : Harelik’s ‘Legacy’ Weighs Too Heavily

SAN DIEGO —  The premiere of “The Legacy,” Mark Harelik’s autobiographically inspired sequel to his 1985 “The Immigrant,” tackles painful issues--with painfully obvious difficulty.

A 12-year-old boy’s beloved mother is dying of cancer. Amid the trauma, his parents fight for his religious soul. His father, Dave (Kim Bennett), an assimilated Jew in a Christian town in West Texas, wants his son to have the bar mitzvah he never had by studying the recordings of Dave’s father--the Russian Jew who was the focus of “The Immigrant.”

The boy’s Jewish-born mother, Rachel (Melinda Deane), convinced by her Aunt Sarah (Sally Stockton) that Jesus can cure her, would like both husband and son to embrace her newfound belief.

It’s a prickly load. And Harelik drops key parts of it in the show’s debut at the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company’s Hahn Cosmopolitan Theatre in San Diego. The show is finely produced--movingly acted, lyrically set by Michael Ganio, lit by Lawrence Oberman and dressed by Jeanne Reith.

But Harelik’s writing--verbose when he needs to get on with it, silent when issues need to be addressed--is missing the sure, spare delivery that made “The Immigrant” a success.

One senses that the playwright, who lost his own mother to cancer when he was 11, seems too close to this subject to make it work. Yet. Director Randal Myler, associate artistic director at the Denver Center Theatre Company and a frequent collaborator with Harelik, gives the show polish but not focus.

Certain moments enchant. The boy, Nathan--the playwright’s alter ego--is charmingly played by the curly headed Willie Bensussen.

The problem is that this should be the boy’s play, but too much time is spent on the parents’ spiritual crisis. The original title of the play was “What the Jews Believe”--far more provocative--but it begs the question of whether Harelik really means this to be a theological argument.

Shouldn’t the religious questions be not ends in themselves, but lightning rods that pry open the boy’s soul, challenging everything he has believed until now? Why not put everything on the table--including the question of whether the bar mitzvah will actually happen?

Deane has a fragile and luminous grace as the dying Rachel. But her spiritual dilemma is left unresolved, so much so that we don’t even know at the end of the play whether she’s still wrestling with the issue, much less whether she’s made a choice. Bennett brings world-weary strength to Dave, but no insights into the irony of how his grief made him push his dying wife away in a desperate attempt to reach forgotten roots.

Stockton brings a sweet dignity to Aunt Sarah, so sure of what she believes. Jack Banning gives depth to the rabbi who finds that comforting this family is like extending a hand to a victim who is heartbreakingly out of reach.

* “The Legacy , “ Hahn Cosmopolitan Theatre, 444 4th Ave., San Diego. Tonight and Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Sunday. $19.50-$25. (619) 234-9583. Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes.

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Willie Bensussen: Nathan

Sally Stockton: Aunt Sarah

Kim Bennett: David

Melinda Deane: Rachel

Jack Banning: Rabbi Bindler

A Gaslamp Quarter Theater Company production of Mark Harelik’s drama. Directed by Randal Myler. Set design: Michael Ganio. Lighting: Lawrence Oberman. Costumes: Jeanne Reith. Sound design: John Gilliland. Stage manager: Rebecca Nachison.