Prayer for the French Republic is now in performances at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre through March 3.
By Elazar Abrahams
Two years ago, I saw the three-hour play Prayer for the French Republic off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club, and reviewed the production. Of it, I wrote, “In a certain sense it’s profound and beautiful. But is it any good? Eh. Not really.” Oh, how wrong I was. The show has now transferred to Broadway proper, ready to be seen and heard by a much larger audience, and I do hope they show up, because it’s exactly what the masses should be .
It’s a funny thing to look back at what I had issue with back in 2022:
“French Republic does not need to be three hours long, and it’s as simple as that. The production has two intermissions at intervals that aren’t even the high points of the show. Harmon clearly has a lot of thoughts about Jewish identity, and they are all packed into this bloated script. We absolutely do not need to sit through a 10 minute monologue on Israel, among other assorted tirades. This epic wants to cover present-day France, which is rife with attacks on those that appear visibly Jewish, as well as the Holocaust. Those two time periods are more than enough, yet the writer insists on discussing the crusades, pogroms, and Sephardi pilgrimages in such depth. It’s just too much at once.”
Well, that’s the crux of why my opinion changed — Israel and current events. In an age where we just lived through the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, and the streets surrounding the very theater now housing this play have been filled with crowds chanting the most heinous blood libel, we absolutely do need that lengthy monologue. What just a short 24 months ago might have played as obnoxious or unnecessary to some, is now going to be cathartic to many, and enlightening to the rest.
This is a play unabashedly about antisemitism, and through the story of the Benhamou family, a clan that has been in France through many decades but now feels more unsafe than ever, playwright Joshua Harmon convincingly portrays and accurately reflects real conversations that Jews around the world are having. The fact that a legitimately outlet like Vulture feels the need to add anti-Israeli military caveats to the first paragraph of their reviews exactly proves the point the play is making.
I also wrote, in my original take:
“Additionally, the quality of the dialogue is noticeably stilted. In real life, people don’t actually talk like these characters do. To borrow a cruel phrase, it feels like you’re watching verbal diarrhea. Again, these characters are just convenient mouthpieces for Harmon to work out his feelings on many topics.”
My critiques remain true. The play has not been edited much for the bigger stage, and objectively, it is indeed messy and preachy. Especially when Harmon tries to balance the grating perspective of Molly (Molly Ranson), an idealistic exchange student and distant cousin from New York, while still juggling a separate but interconnected storyline that takes place in the past of the World War II, the double intermission show can be taxing.
All that being said, I was never bored during the play, which is always an achievement in a work this long. It’s a testament to the cast, all of whom are excellent and game for anything. Their quick back and forth banter is truly delightful, and they sell you on the material. Francis Benhamou, Betsy Aidem, and Nael Nacer stand out as particularly talented.
The staging is also really well done here. Rotating walls and rooms is kind of a Broadway cliché, but it serves its purpose here, expertly flipping back between the same family a few generations apart. I was entranced by the wonderful simplicity of it all, as well as the circular metaphor of history repeating itself.
When I first sat through the show, I closed the article with, “Do I recommend Prayer for the French Republic? The answer is a resounding “‘kind of.’” It’s terrifying how much can change in such a short span of time. The answer is now a resounding yes.
Find tickets and more information HERE.
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