STAGE REVIEW : Long Beach Theater Does Well by ‘A Shayna Maidel’

Six million dead. The size of the Holocaust may be hard for young people to compute into reality today. One family is easier, and the size is, in many ways, more frightening because of its closeness and its detail. That’s what playwright Barbara Lebow accomplished in “A Shayna Maidel,” focusing on a part of the pain, at the same time making the pain universal.

The production at International City Theatre serves the playwright and the play beautifully. Director caryn morse understands the texture of the writing, with its psyche-saving humor, as well as the texture of the time, that frenetic period just following World War II when those survivors lost in the insane maze of the death camps were slowly beginning to find themselves and their loved ones.

Rose (Sarah Halley) was brought to America by her father Mordecai (Jack Axelrod) before the Nazi threat fully blossomed. Mama (Margaret Silbar) and older sister Lusia (Kim Brant) were left behind. Fully Americanized, Rose is suddenly faced with the appearance of her barely remembered Polish sister, whose list of those now dead, including Mama, is a bitter complement to Papa’s list of those still thought missing.

These heartbreaking moments of reconciliation, readjustment and sorrow are leavened in Lebow’s script with moments of beguiling lightness, and in all-around good performances, particularly Axelrod’s iron-willed Old World father, Halley’s spunky New World daughter and most pointedly Brant, whose Lusia, fearful at first, imperceptibly grows in stature, depth and wisdom as she becomes one with her new life.

David Allen Blackburn as Lusia’s husband metamorphoses from her memories of his callow youth to his awkward maturity when they’re finally reunited, and Ilana Salinger bubbles with giddy affection as Lusia’s childhood friend Hanna. Silbar is Lusia’s rose-colored memory of Mama brimming over with love, but incongruously wears a babushka that must have been designed by Edith Head.

Don Llewellyn’s setting, including details such as a proper fold-out Manhattan wall ironing board, is superb, and richly lit by Robert Fromer and Paulie Jenkins. Laura Deremer Bonsall’s costumes and Karen Juneman’s makeup are on the mark for the period, as is Jon Gottlieb’s swing-music sound, which is just right coming from a small radio or swelling to fill the auditorium during blackouts.

“A Shayna Maidel,” International City Theatre, Harvey Way & Clark, Long Beach. Fridays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays 2 and 7 p.m. Ends Sept. 6. $15; (310) 420-4128. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.