The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window Play Review

It is easy to be idealistic in a perfect world. It is harder to have the same perspective in a reality that is far from black and white.

The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window is the first revival of the play by Lorraine Hansberry. Originally premiering in 1964, this adaption follows the interreligious marriage of the Jewish Sidney (Oscar Isaac) and the non-Jewish Iris (Rachel Broshanan).

Set in Greenwich Village in 1963, Sidney is an artist/idealist who never quite saw his dreams become a reality. After watching his nightclub fold, he has just purchased a newspaper. In her previous life, Iris was a performer. But the bills have to be paid, so she works as a waitress. Everything they think they know changes when Sidney decides to hang a sign in their window urging his neighbors to fight against bossism.

The narrative deals with all of the larger societal issues that existed then and still exist now. Obviously, Hansberry is a giant among playwrights. A Raisin in the Sun is and will forever be a classic.

The actors are fantastic. Isaac and Brosnahan have an easy and natural chemistry that makes them believable as an on-stage married couple.

The problem is that it is not a perfect production. After playing to sold-out audiences at the Brooklyn Academy of Music earlier this year, the play transferred to Broadway. Though the script was cut down some from its run at BAM, it is not the powerhouse that I expected it to be. I hate to say it, but I was bored during certain sections of the story.

The one thing that irked me was that early on, Iris takes off her work uniform on stage and spends a few minutes in her underwear before going off stage. Having not read the text, I don’t know if this is an addition by the director Anne Kauffman or if it was part of the original script. Either way, it rubbed me the wrong way.

Do I recommend it? Maybe. The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window is playing at the James Earl Jones Theater in New York City until July 2nd. Check the website for tickets and showtimes.

The Sad Connection of June 12th: Anne Frank’s 94th Birthday and the 7th Anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub Shooting

Anniversaries are not always good things. They can remind us of what was and can never be again.

Monday represented a sad day in human history. It would have been Anne Frank‘s 94th birthday. For me, her unnecessary death is hard twice over. First, she has become a stand-in for the approximately 1.5 million young people who were killed in the Holocaust. Second, she proved that she had a gift for writing at an early age. I can only imagine the work she might have created, had she not been killed for who she was.

On June 12th, 2016, the patrons at the Pulse nightclub were doing what we all do in such an establishment: dancing, drinking, and generally having a good time. They were not bothering anyone or forcing their point of view on others.

49 people were killed that night and 53 were wounded. It was, up to that point, the worst mass shooting in the US until the next one in Las Vegas. It’s hard to believe that it has been 7 years, but it is. As someone who recently came out, I feel this pain acutely.

To be targeted and marked for death simply due to identifiers such as religion or sexual preference is a black mark on humanity.

May their memories be a blessing. Z”L.