Miami New Drama’s new world premiere play Birthright by Jonathan Spector is jaw-droppingly good. The three-and-half-hour sprawling, epic dramedy chronicles the friendship of six Jewish-Americans over the course of twenty years from 2006 to 2024.
Birthright is ambitious and bold. An epic American journey woven from the Jewish experience into the American experience. Storytelling at its best! It’s brilliant, raucous, fast-paced, extremely well-written and highly entertaining. It is a Jewish-American gem, blurring the lines between identity politics and a popular culture retreat. The dialogue is smart and layered, and as the characters talk over each other, the layers and depth only sink in more.
It’s hard to write about on a tight deadline. There’s too much. The script was originally 330 pages — they whittled it down to 220 pages for the Miami premiere.
Birthright will be a movie someday and probably make it to Broadway, and justly so.
This is the most ambitious world premiere we’ve seen in Miami since A Wonderful World.
Birthright: where do we start?
Act I — 2006 — what a time, post Katrina and the Iraq war, Bush fatigue, the birth of YouTube and Facebook, flip phones and pre-Obama – we meet our crew, all in their early twenties, bright-eyed Americans enjoying a house party … commenting on all of this and more … captured like prestige television…or a classic season of Friends.
The play buries its Jewish theology in American pop culture, American history, and American politics — making you realize crisply and loudly the Jewish experience is embroidered into the American experience.
The characters are neurotic, self-deprecating, self-aware but dissociative, human and relatable. Birthright is a lecture and a pow wow at the same time.
It feels foreign and intimately familiar.
Set in a comfortable suburban home creates a nostalgia many of a certain generation will connect with — I grew up on Long Island and moved to Parkland (in the 90s) — this cast and these characters feel very familiar and I don’t have a Jewish bone in my body.
The set is amazing by the way. As are all performances. The acting is superb. Pitch perfect intonation, speed, chemistry and tempo, top to bottom. All seven players sharp and in tune: Irene Adjan, Hale Appleman, Daniel Capote. Stephen Stocking, Krystal Millie Valdes, all amazing – with standout performances from Arielle Goldman and Dani Stoller.
Birthright: where do we end?
Birthright works best when four or more characters are together versus one-on-one diatribes that get a tad preachy and slow. The dialogue heavy play may lack scenic movement but it’s so fast paced (except when bogged down by theology) you will feel a part of the party or family.
Spanning 20 years, it allows its characters to evolve, devolve, grow and shrink and stumble, it is an extremely accurate portrayal of an epic, sprawling slice of American life.
Some may feel the play drags on at three and a half hours — on the contrary, it’s epic storytelling, a surprisingly multi-faceted examination of the story of Zionism and Israel, bold and breathtaking, riskier than one would expect for a world premiere in Miami Beach.
This is one of those theatrical expereinces you just have to see for yourself.
Birthright is now playing at the Colony Theater.
For more info and tickets, click here.
Acknowledgements
This article’s published with the support of the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners.
