In Joshua Harmon’s tightly-wound, highly polished comedy, three privileged student grandchildren of a Holocaust survivor gather in a Manhattan studio apartment after his death. They fight savagely over his chai, the gold medallion he hid under his tongue in the death camp, but also over what it means to be Jewish. Is Liam betraying the faith and the family if he marries his gentile girlfriend? Is his cousin Daphna’s devoutness and ardent Zionism a form of cosplay? Is Liam’s younger brother Jonah a good or a bad Jew for not taking sides?
This revival by Jon Pashley of Michael Longhurst’s original 2015 London production takes the play’s many peaks of hysterical emotion and brutal wit like a series of ski jumps. It’s a superior example of a particular New York genre for which there is no British equivalent, and a welcome addition to the London mix.
