‘The Legacy’ Gets Entangled Amid Themes

“The Legacy,” Mark Harelik’s play about a man trying to hold on to his Judaism in the Hebraic desert of West Texas, starts out not with a fiddler, but with a kid, on the roof. Impatiently trying to memorize the Haftorah portion for his bar mitzvah, Nathan Estanitsky listens to a scratchy recording of a man speaking a strange language.

Nathan, played with utter naturalness by Joey Zimmerman--a real find--soon lapses into a stand-up routine about why it took Moses 40 whole days to receive 10 commandments. “What’s that Hebrew?” he asks, impersonating Moses, shrugging his shoulders like a tiny Billy Crystal. “I only speak Egyptian!”

The voice on the scratchy recording is Nathan’s grandfather, who, we later learn, is a compulsive joke teller, just like Nathan. The link between the two, never commented upon by any character, is one very lonely light touch in this laborious play, a sequel to “The Immigrant,” the popular 1985 play in which Harelik chronicled his (or Nathan’s) Russian grandfather’s arrival in a Jew-less Texas town. A hostage to Harelik’s overwrought themes, “The Legacy” nevertheless gets a loving production at the Old Globe Theatre.

Andrew Yelusich’s handsome set shows a tidy, comfortable house--one that does not recognize chaos--that pivots on a turntable to reveal walls that are transparent. Above, arresting clouds made out of fabric hang ominously, sometimes luminously, depending on Michael Gilliam’s lighting. The house is transparent because the pain of the people who live in it is suddenly brought to the surface. Nathan’s mother, Rachel (Jacqueline Antaramian), is dying of cancer.

It’s of course difficult not to be moved when a dying woman cowers in her husband’s arms, crying and screaming, “I’m falling! What do we do now?” But Harelik overstates his characters’ most anguished moments, and director Laird Williamson follows suit. Nathan throws an unusually destructive fit that is completely unconvincing given what we know about him, and Rachel’s ups and downs are overwritten and overacted. She collapses to the ground outside; she tears off her wig and throws it down; or--once her Christian Scientist aunt gets hold of her--she’s ecstatically filled up with the spirit of Jesus. Dying people sometimes behave badly, but this seems more like a playwright behaving badly; Harelik constantly pushes the audience to make sure it’s getting on the boat.

Rachel’s husband, Dave, played by Harelik, turns to his lost Jewishness to help him in his despair. He’s on a crusade to preserve the world of his dead father, the character chronicled in “The Immigrant.” Harelik is interested in why and how people believe, but he writes as if his characters never talk or think about anything other than his themes, and the religious struggle for Rachel’s soul is drawn so crudely that it almost seems like propaganda.

Aunt Sarah (Ann Guilbert) moves in to help take care of Rachel, who is getting sicker and more despairing all the time. Rachel confronts a rabbi (Len Lesser), asking, “Why am I dying?” The rabbi is kind but gives her tough, Talmudic answers. Everyone dies; why shouldn’t she die if it is her time and God wills it? But Rachel is left more inconsolable than ever. That is when Aunt Sarah, who had been sitting quietly helping out and hovering, comes out of the closet. When she steps forward and compels Rachel to believe in Christ, the audience recoils en masse. The way we’ve been set up, it’s as if she’s peddling Satan.

After a night spent reading Christian Science literature, lifelong Jew Rachel is singing the praises of Jesus. “How did I change? All I did was read a book!” she crows. Sarah keeps at her in an unrelievedly tedious scene at the top of Act 2, speaking to Rachel in the silky, condescending tones of a bad kindergarten teacher: “The spirit of Christ is in health. Disease is the result of education. . . . You’re alive, do you hear me? Live!” When Rachel responds, “The spirit of Christ fills our bodies!” they seem like they’re on some kind of debauched orgy.

The pity about “The Legacy” is that Harelik clearly has some good instincts mixed in with the bad. The character of Nathan is well delineated and free of sentimentality and the weight of carrying Harelik’s ideas. When Nathan, without rebuke, tells his newly fanatical mother that Moses lies in an unmarked grave because he didn’t want people praying to him, he offers the kind of simple observation that the play cries out for. The house itself is overlaid from time to time with projections of Hebrew letters and old Jewish faces, men in beards and yarmulkes. Though it makes a handsome effect, it seems more like a metaphor for a play entrapped by its themes.

* “The Legacy,” Old Globe Theatre, Simon Edison Centre for the Performing Arts, San Diego. Tue.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 7 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 2 p.m. Ends Aug. 23. $22-$39. (619) 239-2255. Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes.

Joey Zimmerman: Nathan Estanitsky

Aunt Sarah: Ann Guilbert

Mark Harelik: Dave Estanitsky

Jacqueline Antaramian: Rachel Estanitsky

Len Lesser: Rabbi Jacob Bindler

An Old Globe Theatre production. By Mark Harelik. Directed by Laird Williamson. Lights Michael Gilliam. Sets and costumes Andrew Yelusich. Sound Jeff Ladman. Stage manager Lurie Horns Pfeffer.