Review: “Joy and Pandemic” at HTC

Stacy Fischer and Breezy Leigh in The Huntington’s production of Taylor Mac’s Joy & Pandemic. Photo: T Charles Erickson

By Robert Israel

When the curtain rises on act one of Taylor Mac’s ambitious but ultimately weighty and unsatisfying play, many in the audience the night I attended audibly gasped; several applauded. The scenic design by Arnulfo Maldonado is truly a “joy” to behold. Depicting an art school in Philadelphia in 1918, the room is cluttered with easels and drawings, vases and flowers; a noisy set of chimes trumpets the arrival of the cast of five who sashays across this room, resplendently dressed in period costumes brilliantly designed by Sarita Fellows. At first I thought I might be attending the repertory company’s production of one of Oscar Wilde’s taut comedies of manners, what with all the broad-brimmed ladies’ hats held in place by menacing hatpins. It seemed that the audience was anticipating this, too, thanks to an initial homage to Wilde in the script’s early banters. But that mood fizzles. Soon, in spite of the radiant set and colorful fabrics, darkness prevails.

That’s because — even in this most historic of American cities where a parade is underway commemorating the end of World War I– all the characters are fraught with worry over the influenza pandemic, now raging. We are meant to make the (unspoken) connection to our own collective struggle with the Covid pandemic over the past few years. This threatening reality forces the characters to cave in under the weight of ponderous issues that include internecine family conflicts, religion, racism, privilege, among others.

Those conflicts center on the title character, Joy Eldridge (Stacy Fischer), a Christian Scientist and director of the art school which caters to (mostly) white children of privilege. Not unlike the anti-vaxxers among us during Covid, Joy believes her faith will see through the influenza pandemic. It is symptomatic of a collective denial we all know too well. (It resonated with my memory of Robyn Twitchell, a two year-old who died of a bowel obstruction in Hyde Park in 1986 despite repeated attempts by a Christian Science practitioner to heal him through prayer.) We hear “the world is larger than us – you don’t need to be in charge of it.” We also hear that the pandemic is “a lie we tell ourselves.” The problem is that corpses don’t lie: they just pile up. Yes, many of these deaths could have been prevented. Prayerful attempts at healing rarely trump an application of legitimate science and pharmaceutical intervention.

The plot revolves around whether it is time to carry on business as usual. Rosemary (Marceline Hugot) insists that Joy’s husband (and Rosemary’s son) Bradford (Ryan Winkles) and daughter Pilly (Ella Dershowitz) hold off on the open house they are busily preparing for. The racial conflict is subtly underscored when Bradford puts finishing brush strokes on the only Black student’s painting – it can’t be possibly be good enough without his interference.

That racial theme is picked up in the second act, set in 1952, during the polio pandemic. We meet Marjory (Breezy Leigh), who returns to the art school and gazes upon her painting made when she was a youngster. She puts her own finishing touches on the canvas. That act of completing her work of art – it represents the unfinished canvas of her life – is the only uplifting moment in an otherwise lugubrious script.

While HTC director Lorretta Greco is, to use her words, “over the moon” about playwright Mac, I was less impressed. I have not seen his other works, for which he has been lauded with a Tony nomination and critical acclaim. I don’t doubt that he is gifted, as evidenced by being awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant. And, indeed, he may be “a relentless and loving instigator” (again, Greco’s words). But I did not see evidence of that here, where Mac’s characters spend an inordinate amount of time telling us what they think and feel. Homage is paid to the “mystery” of art — but there’s not much evidence of it over the play’s two-hour duration. I did see a talented cast doing its best to add buoyancy to a script weighted down in palaver.

**

A previous version of this review was published in The Arts Fuse magazine, May 6th, 2023.

Homage to Rabbi Harold S. Kushner

Harold S. Kushner 1935-2023

By Robert Israel

Rabbis, priests, imams, ministers: they are spiritual leaders who, over the millennia, answer a calling that positions them to stand before their congregations and to lead their congregants in worship. But they do more than this. By answering this “higher calling,” they also help to heal others by ministering to their congregants with life-cycle observances and ceremonies honoring births, deaths, and everything in between. Additionally, these clergy are confidants, hearing confessions, providing advice, visiting the elderly and infirm at their residences, and serving as educators at schools and elsewhere. In short, they go beyond the walls of their churches, mosques and synagogues, to meet and greet their congregants and neighbors wherever they need to. Many clergy also serve as chaplains at various civic institutions – the police and fire departments — and at hospitals.

In the case of Rabbi Harold S. Kushner, who died on April 27 at the age of 88, he did all these things; he was also a scholar and writer.

During the years I worked as a weekly newspaper editor and reporter, I had a position that went beyond the newsroom. I had access to men and women I normally would not have met, and I found it rewarding. It meant listening and offering advice and not necessarily reporting on it. For me, to be of service to my readers, in addition to daily writing, editing and supervision of staff, meant that I attend events at night or weekends at community meetings at synagogue meeting rooms, at places like the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, for example, where the annual Man or Woman of the Year ceremonies took place in a gaudy ballroom. Upon reflection years later, I do not remember the names of the award recipients at these events, or the subjects of the closed door meetings I attended. And nor do I remember who sat beside me at the table at the award ceremonies I attended, except for one: Rabbi Harold Kushner, a celebrated author and chief rabbi at Temple Israel in Natick, Mass.

Since Rabbi Kushner and I were local to one another, we conducted routine business together – sharing stories about people and community. He had an agenda, to promote his congregants and their social and religious activities. It was quite ordinary for him to telephone the newspaper, “Did you get the press release I sent you?” he’d ask. But he also understood that going beyond just providing basic services to the community was something we shared, outside the dictates of our respective job descriptions.

We had a brief conversation about writing at an event in Boston, when I asked him about how he went about tackling a writing project. I wanted to know his process. Was it like preparing to write a sermon? Did he “sound out” the idea before his congregation in the form of a sermon, or a dialog? Were his writing projects more like extended sermons, interspersed with examples from life? He was unfailingly polite. He began to discuss his approach, when he stopped himself and urged me to follow-up with a formal interview. To my chagrin – and I can blame the crush of other stories and management duties I was faced with as a half-baked excuse — I never did. The newspaper world is one that thrives on chaos, and, during this time, I was caught in a whirlwind.

I did, however, derive benefit from reading several of his books, including his bestseller When Bad Things Happen to Good People. He told me he was often asked about that book, to the exclusion of his other books. It sold millions of copies worldwide. His intention for the book, he told an interviewer, was for it to be a clarion call. “An idea that is probably more emphasized in Judaism than in any of the Christian traditions is to minimize the theology and maximize the sense of community,” he said. That philosophy — of strengthening community and helping one another through personal and collective crises — can be found as a thematic thread woven throughout his work.

My favorite among his books is Living a Life That Matters.In that book, Kushner closes with a quote from the Talmud.

“The Talmud records this exchange,” Rabbi Kushner wrote, “between two of the sages: [the first sage]‘Our ancestor Jacob never died.’ [the second sage]‘How can you say that? The Bible describes him as dying in Egypt and being buried in Hebron.’ [the first sage]‘A good person, even in death, is still alive.’”

Rabbi Kushner has left us; he remains, through his work, his books, and his deeds, alive and with us always.