STAGE REVIEW : A Spiritual Yearning in ‘Cantorial’

The Torah has been replaced by a TV, the hard pews by a soft couch.

What was once a little synagogue for some of the immigrants who filled the Lower East Side of Manhattan has become a condominium for a couple of yuppies, Warren Ives (Terry Evans) and Lesley Rosen (Carol Keis).

But then the new owners start hearing a disembodied voice--and it’s not coming from their audio equipment. It’s a cantor, imploring them (in Hebrew) to “build your house the way it was.”

It isn’t surprising that this premise was created by Ira Levin, who also wrote “Rosemary’s Baby.” But in his “Cantorial,” at the Gindi Auditorium of the University of Judaism, Levin isn’t trying to spook us.

He’s examining the unquenchable nature of spiritual yearning. A potentially weighty subject, yes, but Levin retains a light touch, and his tale is more accessible, if less profound, because of it. This is that rare play about spiritual matters that seems “commercial.” To paraphrase an old commercial slogan, you don’t have to be Jewish to be intrigued by “Cantorial.”

That applies even to the play’s pivotal character. A 29-year-old commodities broker, Warren is a Gentile, the adopted son of a remote Midwestern politician. It’s his Jewish girlfriend Lesley who recognizes the voice that drifts into their home as that of a cantor. Warren’s first reaction is to do whatever he can to get rid of it.

So the couple consults with Morris Lipkind, the corner deli owner (Len Lesser), who belonged to the congregation that inhabited these premises--until it died of attrition seven years earlier. He identifies the voice. It was that of a legendary cantor who died in 1943. Morris never knew the man, but he knows someone in Florida who knew him, and they begin to fill in the details about the phantom cantor.

It turns out the cantor also was a cabinetmaker. He did the intricate woodwork carvings in the old shul. The previous owners of the condominium covered up his handiwork with a more contemporary look. But Warren becomes curious to see what the original decor looks like.

His curiosity grows into an obsession. He begins to skip work as he researches the look of the old temple, uncovering not only the old woodwork but also a gaping hole in his own sense of self. He decides his birth mother must have been Jewish.

Soon he has moved beyond restoring just the ark at the front of the temple. He wants it all--including a real congregation. “I own my own synagogue,” he declares. Lesley, meanwhile, is unnerved by the changes in her boyfriend. She walks out, then calls in Warren’s father (Marty Schnitzer), for a quick check of his son’s sanity.

Warren’s efforts are opposed by just about everyone. Still, one voice was left out of the play: someone who would challenge him from a deeply religious perspective. For example, Warren doesn’t attend a real Jewish service with Morris, ostensibly because he has to make up some of the time he’s been away from his office--and Morris doesn’t question it. But certainly many Jews would find it outrageously presumptuous or even unlawful for someone to create his own synagogue without even taking the time to attend services.

Levin doesn’t go the distance in measuring the dimensions of his story, but he tells it awfully well. And Jeremiah Morris’ staging is hampered only by occasional pacing problems caused by the complexity of Starbuck’s set and the apparent lack of the necessary equipment at the Gindi that would move set pieces on and off stage in a hurry.

This could be an even greater problem for the show at its next stop, the much smaller Actors Alley in North Hollywood, where it will reopen in January. It’s hard to imagine this spacious condo being converted back into a synagogue on a small stage. The shul set pieces also don’t look very authentic; it must be a challenge to combine authenticity with mobility.

Still, the Actors Alley cast speaks well of the company’s ability to make the leap up from its smaller venue. Evans transcends his initial blandness and becomes a man with a mission. Keis is OK, but Lesser and Schnitzer are more than that.

The cantor’s voice was recorded by New York cantor Paul Zim. The sound design, by Trevor Feldman and John Borland, could use greater dynamic variety, but director Morris attributed this to the limits of the sound system at the Gindi.

* “Cantorial,” Gindi Auditorium at the University of Judaism, 15600 Mulholland Drive, tonight through Wednesday, 8 p.m. $15-$20. (310) 476-9777. Plays at Actors Alley, 12135 Riverside Drive, North Hollywood, Jan. 5-Feb. 16. (818) 508-4200. Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes.