Compellingly performed by Maureen Lipman, Martin Sherman’s monologue for a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust and multiple 20th century displacements goes in some surprising directions. Born in a disputed Russian/Ukrainian/Polish shtetl, Rose survives poverty and Cossack raids, loses her husband and daughter in the Warsaw ghetto, tries to reach Palestine on the Exodus in 1947 but ends up in Florida. One scene, by my reckoning, sees Lipman range across humour, tragedy, political argument and erotic reverie.
In the second half, her already sardonic soliloquy takes a turn into outright comedy, before shifting again into a debate about Israel, the Promised Land that Rose yearned for and which her son reached. The play was first done by Olympia Dukakis at the National in 1999. This production, directed by Scott Le Crass, originated at the Park Theatre last year. The main themes remain sadly current.
