Fathers, Sons, Friendship and Faith

Two Jewish teenagers, growing up in ‘40s Brooklyn, are on parallel but very different paths toward adulthood--yet manage to become best friends.

The parallelism becomes tangible in the absorbing stage adaptation of the late Chaim Potok’s popular novel “The Chosen,” now in its beautifully acted West Coast premiere at Miles Memorial Playhouse in Santa Monica.

On one side of the stage is the kitchen table of yeshiva teacher David Malter (John Herzog) and son Reuven (Nicholas Downs). On the other side is the home office of a Hasidic rabbi, Reb Saunders (Robert Grossman), who discusses the Talmud but does not otherwise talk to his son and anointed successor Danny (Adam Silverstein).

Sometimes the audience can see action simultaneously in both homes. When the rabbi forbids his son from seeing Reuven because of Reuven’s father’s Zionism, heated discussions erupt in overlapping dialogue on both sides of the stage.

The story is smoothly narrated by Robert Pescovitz, playing grown-up Reuven plus several small roles. In the second act, the older Reuven briefly counsels the younger Reuven, like a voice from the future, urging him to concentrate on what he really wants to do with his life. It’s the play’s most pointedly theatrical device.

In other words, this adaptation--by Potok and Aaron Pos- ner--creates a living stage event, not a literal reenactment of the novel.

The novel’s length would preclude the more literal approach. Certainly the story has been trimmed to fit a standard theatrical running time. We see the initial meeting of the two boys in their dramatic confrontation at a baseball game, in which slugger Danny’s hit injures pitcher Reuven’s eye. But in Reuven’s subsequent hospital stay, the stage version eliminates his fellow patients, doctor and nurse. The two boys become friends faster on stage.

Women--hardly prominent in the novel--are completely absent from the play. The sense that Reb Saunders usually speaks in Yiddish, obvious in the book even though his words are printed in English, is hardly noticeable here.

Yet the play also has a few enriching details that aren’t in the book. Some of these are purely visual. In the second act, we see Reuven and Danny playfully slapping each other as part of a reconciliation scene, and we briefly see them playing catch, in a mild echo of their first meeting. When Reb Saunders finally releases Danny to go his own way, the two embrace. No such embrace is mentioned in the book, but in the theater it provides a necessary catharsis.

The casting is impeccable. Silverstein’s Danny has a carefully controlled charisma. Downs and Herzog, as his father, establish such a warm bond that we can see where Reuven acquired his easy self-assurance, as well as his inquisitive spirit. Grossman’s Reb Saunders has a resonant voice and a formidable wrath.

David Ellenstein’s staging is a co-production of his own Los Angeles Repertory Company and the West Coast Jewish Theatre. The collaboration surely facilitated doing the show at the 150-seat Miles, with the higher costs of an Actors’ Equity contract, instead of a sub-100-seat theater. The Miles seating is raked only every few rows, which could lead to sight-line problems, but the dialogue is clearly audible. And the pre-’40s theater’s ambience is appropriate for this penetrating look into the rewards and the perils of choosing, and of being chosen.

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“The Chosen,” Miles Memorial Playhouse, 1130 Lincoln Blvd., Santa Monica. Thursdays-Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 and 7 p.m. Dark this Sunday. Ends Oct. 13. $25. (800) 595-4849. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

Nicholas Downs...Young Reuven

Robert Pescovitz...Older Reuven

John Herzog...David Malter

Adam Silverstein...Danny Saunders

Robert Grossman...Reb Saunders

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By Chaim Potok and Aaron Posner. Directed by David Ellenstein. Set by Esquire Jauchem. Lighting by Michael Eddy. Costumes by Jeanne Reith. Sound by Nick Batzdorf. Stage manager Armina Lamanna.