“It can be very hard for well-meaning people to know what’s right in a tough situation.”
– After the Revolution
Playwright Amy Herzog pulls out all the stops in her riveting award-winning drama about three generations of the Joseph family —a brood of politically hard-core lefties.
“It can be very hard for well-meaning people to know what’s right in a tough situation.”
– After the Revolution
Playwright Amy Herzog pulls out all the stops in her riveting award-winning drama about three generations of the Joseph family —a brood of politically hard-core lefties.
And, while the play focuses in on the Josephs individually and collectively, “After the Revolution” is a creative reckoning about a powerful and thought-provoking personal, generational, and political detour into episodic real life drama.
Herzog gives audiences a telescopic view into how the fractured Joseph family reacts to the impending release of a scandalous tell-all book threatening to “drop a bomb” on their ethical values and beliefs, political ideology, and ultimately the destruction of the family name forever.
It is 1999, and much of Generation X is said to be apathetic, disengaged and tuned out
to the political issues of its times (and, perhaps, rightfully so). However, there are those
with convictions and determination to do the right thing, and these young people are driven and striving to make a difference.
Twenty-six-year-old scholarly social activist Emma Joseph (Marina Michelson) is one of these people. Emma is also the centerpiece of Herzog’s After the Revolution. To the delight of her gushingly proud family, Emma has recently graduated law school, and she has created a civil rights focused foundation named for her late Marxist grandfather, Joe, who was blacklisted during the days of the McCarthy witch hunts.
The fund, itself, is dedicated to social causes, most notably, to the actual case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, an infamous Black Panther who was imprisoned for allegedly shooting a police officer in Pennsylvania.
Life takes an interesting turn as Emma soon learns that the book will reveal facts that her radical martyred grandfather was a World War II spy working for the Soviets. Is there a time to stop paying for the sins of our fathers and move on with doing the right thing? Is it possible? Unable to deal with the truth about her legacy, but more importantly, to accept the fact that her father, Ben (Robert Foran), hid this dark secret from her, she begins to emotionally unravel.
The family hierarchy takes a sudden shift as the family’s rising star teeters and Emma’s sister, Jess (Camryn Zelinger) and family black sheep, moves gracefully into the top
tier position.
As the family stumbles into the crises of conscience, the Josephs’ interwoven stories unfold faultlessly. It is a nod to the brilliance of Director Oanh Nguyen as to how he pulls the audience’s center of attention respectfully from one scene to the next. Nguyen’s flawless direction establishes that each individual relationship bears as much importance to the story as does the play’s message overall.
Martha Carter’s lighting design contributes greatly as her shifts of light throughout the set generates the mood of the characters, as does the transformation of the characters and their relationships.
Excellent performances by Robert Foran as Ben, Karen Webster as Mel, Corkey Loupe as Leo, Katherine McKalip as Vera, Marina Michelson as Emma, Andrew Puente as Miguel, David Carl Golbeck as Morty, and Camryn Zelinger as Jess.
“After the Revolution”is playing at the Chance Theater at BETTE AIKEN Theater Arts Center, 5522 La Palma Ave, Anaheim. For more information, please call 714-777-3033.
