Broken Glass at the New Rep

The year is 1938, and in Brooklyn, Sylvia Gellburg, has become paralyzed from the waist down for no reason, to her husband’s dismay. He has consulted the dashing, handsome Dr. Harry Hyman to treat Sylvia. Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, Kristallnacht has occurred: that night in 1938 when Nazis went on a rampage, shattering the windows of Jewish shopkeepers and burning synagogues. Sylvia is obsessed by a news photo of two elderly Jews forced to clean the sidewalk with toothbrushes while a mob taunts them. Dr. Hyman has become convinced that Sylvia’s paralysis is psychosomatic, brought on by some unknown stress, and spends a good part of the play trying to tease out the root cause. In the mean time, Phillip Gellburg, a Jew who wants desperately to assimilate, gets into trouble with his Wasp boss at the Brooklyn bank where Phillip is the only Jew. During the course of the play we learn more and more about the Gellburg’s failed marriage, and the denouement is fairly predictable. The cast is strong, with particular kudos to Anne Gottlieb as Sylvia. Jeremiah Kissel’s Phillip is well-played, but his lines were often swallowed. Benjamin Evett, who has played many roles at the New Rep, is a very credible dashing ladies’ man. The other parts: Eve Passeltiner as Harry’s wife Margaret, Christine Hamel as Sylvia’s younger sister, and Michael Kaye as the rich Wasp boss, are less demanding but well-done. The action shifts seamlessly from Dr. Hyman’s office to the Gellburg bedroom to the bank with a revolving stage. Coming from Arthur Miller, you expect unhappiness, and Phillip Gellburg carries unmistakable overtones of Willy Loman, insecure in himself. Do not go to the New Rep to be “entertained” but do go to experience powerful acting.