Playwright Wendy Graf, who examined the profound emotional and existential implications of her Jewish identity in her first two plays, is debuting the third play in her trilogy on Friday, October 20 at the Lee Strasberg Institute in West Hollywood. ‘All my plays have dealt with identity, including Jewish identity and the search for faith, although this one, ‘Leipzig,’ is the least specifically Jewish,’ Graf says, noting the resurgent focus on identity in our times. ‘Leipzig’ follows the life of a Jewish girl, Eva Kelly, who left Germany during Hitler’s terror and was raised by a Catholic family in Boston. She marries a Catholic, and her past is never spoken of again. The couple’s daughter, Helen, sensing the weight of the secret, unexpectedly opens a tiny crack in her mother’s lifelong subterfuge. Her need to discover the whole of her mother leads Helen to press to understand, an obsession which is accelerated by Eva’s rapidly developing Alzheimer’s. Confused and angry, Helen wonders what her mother’s Jewishness means to her. ‘I don’t want to be a Jew,’ she laments. All of sudden, Helen’s identity is shaken and, in her consoling conversations with ‘Jesus,’ Helen wonders why anyone would want to be a Jew, who century after century have suffered ostracism, hatred and persecution. Graf, a Mandeville Canyon resident, grew up in Brentwood and graduated from Palisades High. Her Jewishness was dormant, as her parents felt it was more important to be an American than a Jew. She began to explore the Jewish part of her identity, and out of that study emerged her first play, ‘The Book of Esther,’ named after the woman from the Old Testament who, despite adversity, stood up and claimed her Jewishness. Having discovered a more profound relationship with her Jewish identity, Graf refined her theme in ‘Leipzig’ through coincidences. Graf, who rediscovered a more profound relationship with her Jewish identity as an adult, refined her theme for ‘Leipzig’ through coincidence. A few years ago, she met a woman who had accompanied her mother, a Jewish refugee, back to her birthplace in Leipzig, Germany. ‘I was fascinated. I wondered how it felt for the mother to return to the home that had turned its back on her. Who and what had she left behind?’ From that interview, Graf went on to talk to many people who had escaped from Europe–some who had returned to their birthplace, others who refused. But all of these biographies were just that, biographies; no theme emerged. ‘The stories that I heard were so fascinating, so full of human drama, but I couldn’t seem to translate it to the stage,’ Graf says. ‘Frustrated with my abortive attempts, I put it away and started on another project. ‘Then someone close to me began to show signs of Alzheimer’s. One day, while still mostly lucid, she turned to me and said ‘What a funny disease this is. I can’t remember some things that just happened, or sometimes even what word to say, but then, out of nowhere, I remember something from so long ago.’ A light went off in my head. The refugees, the hidden survivors’What if someone had a secret they tried their whole life to forget, and now they were desperate to remember, before it was too late? Thus the birth of ‘Leipzig.” It was the theme–the moral and ethical conclusions about the story–that captured the attention and commitment for both director Deborah La Vine and actors Salome Jens and Mimi Kennedy. ‘The story was very personal for Deborah, too,’ Graf says of her director, who joined the project after the play had been workshopped at Theatre West. Graf and La Vine presented two more readings, but the play wasn’t changed substantially from what Graf had conceived and written. To be sure, there were a few tweaks, here and there, such as Kennedy’s advice that Graf call God, ‘the father,’ in keeping with the customary Catholic nomenclature. As for the actors, Graf says, the challenges in ‘Leipzig’ are great. ‘This is a very difficult play,’ she concedes. ‘You have to convey what’s in reality, and what’s out. When you are conversing with imaginary people, like Jesus, or with dead people. You also have to be clear about when Eva is in Alzheimer’s and out, and what the actors can and can’t hear.’ For the first couple of weeks of rehearsals, which began in late August, Graf stayed away. ‘I wanted the actors and director to build a relationship and I also wanted to give the actors the freedom to explore the characters.’ In the end, Graf believes that ‘Leipzig’ may be her masterpiece, for a number of reasons. ‘I consider this a well-constructed piece that addresses a lot of relevant issues, but is in no way sentimental. We are all part of all this stuff,’ she says, referring to the whole of our identity. Helen is part of a Jewish Catholic family from Boston, and a woman trying to find peace with all these identities. ‘As Jesus says in the play, ‘Everyone has to find out where they fit on the continuum.” Graf and her husband Jerry Kaplan and their two children, Liza and Michael Kaplan, have integrated their Jewish identity into their lives and are members of Kehillat Israel. ‘Leipzig’ runs for eight weeks from October 20 through December 10 in the Marilyn Monroe Theatre at the Lee Strasberg Institute, 7936 Santa Monica Blvd. For tickets, call (323) 650-7777 or visit www.westcoastjewishtheatre.org.
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