In Every Generation (TheatreWorks)

West Coast Premiere, January 18-February 12, 2023, TheatreWorks (Mt. View)

By Ali Viterbi
Directed by Michael Barakiva
Cast: Sarah Lo, Michael Champlin, Luisa Sermol, Cindy Goldfield, Olivia Nicole Hoffman
Scenic Design: Nina Ball
Costume Design: Suzanne Chesney
Lighting Design: Kurt Landisman

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About the show

TheatreWorks Silicon Valley is presenting the West Coast Premiere of Ali Viterbi’s play In Every Generation. The play had won the National Jewish Playwriting Contest and was previously produced at the Victory Gardens Theater in 2022.

The play combines the Passover story and Holocaust survivors and antisemitism and lots of family themes — there are so many layers going on and so much to think about. The play takes place at Passover in four very different times:
PART ONE: April 2019, Los Angeles
PART TWO: April 1954, Los Angeles
PART THREE: April 2050, Los Angeles
PART FOUR: April ~1416 BCE, Sinai Desert

TheatreWorks always seems to exceed our expectations with their productions, and this was certainly no exception.

Highlights

• The seder scenes were deeply recognizable to me, capturing the desire to keep up traditions and bring people together while often resulting in crazy family dynamics, revealing of secrets, sibling rivalries, and generally not meeting expectations. I think you would still get a lot out of the show without that visceral recognition, but for those of us with many Passovers under our belt, there was a lot to experience and unpack.

• The set, designed by Nina Ball was stunning. We sat utterly mesmerized during intermission as the stage crew transformed the set from the family’s 2019 house into their 1954 apartment, sliding out the walls and turning them, and then sliding them back onto the other side to form new walls.

The Center for Performing Arts in Mountain View is a beautiful venue.

• Don’t miss the projections over the stage of important moments in history — which then extend into a (darkly) imagined future as the scene shifts to 2050.

• The actors were really magnificent, and we were so curious to see how they would portray themselves at different ages (the grandparents in 2019 and then as a young couple in 1954.) So much of the play is the family interactions between them and the inherited trauma and stories passed down.

  We had previously seen Michael Champlin (who plays Davide Levi) in the Los Altos Stage Company in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Roger), but he was unrecognizable in this role.