Five Reasons Why The Wanderers Experiments with Tradition
By: Iris Wiener
March 5, 2023: The two couples in Anna Zeigler’s The Wanderers, now playing at Roundabout Theatre Company, couldn’t be more different; their connection is quickly revealed, yet their intricacies slowly develop over the course of a play that is engaging, yet unnecessarily lengthy. Orthodox Jews Esther (Lucy Freyer) and Schmuli (Dave Klasko) are a newly married couple, and their lives are mapped out per the rules of their religion. Secular Jew Abe (Eddie Kaye Thomas) is a famous novelist who represents a very different set of beliefs, as he hopes to write his own future…until a surprise email from film star, Julia Cheever (Katie Holmes), puts a wrench in his marriage to Sophie (Sarah Cooper) and threatens to prove him wrong. Despite some contextual flaws, there are still five reasons why wandering past this play would be a mistake.
1. Zeigler’s thoughtful, persuasive dialogue is unforgettable in moments that require closer examination. For example, at one point Sophie remarks, “I don’t want to be any of the things I actually am.” Esther also delivers poignant lines, such as when she posits that she is “waiting for life to give me something it will never provide.”
2. The exploration of religious beliefs and societal tests is important to explore in 2023. It feels essential to comprehend and challenge traditions, such as arranged marriages and the subservient roles of women, and there is no better way to do it than through a character-study as broad and contrasting as one with individuals across generations.
3. Eddie Kaye Thomas’ Abe is complexly drawn and essentially moves the play’s intricacies. His complicated relationship with his family and Abe’s exploration of what moves him forward is deftly touched upon with humor, enthusiasm and hopelessness. Hopefully this is the first of many more theatrical performances to come.
4. Marion Williams’ set, three walls of floor to ceiling books and open manuscripts, immediately sets the tone for a story that is enmeshed in tradition, yearning, and the power of words. These themes manifest themselves in a number of ways, all of which are foreshadowed by the intriguing backdrop accompanied by little more than a table, chairs, and stacks of books lit from within to varying effects.
5. Katie Holmes plays a heightened version of herself, displaying little substance with the same cadences for which she has been criticized since her Dawson’s Creek days. Yet, this is the entryway to this play for the modern crowd, as much of the show does pander to a built-in, older, Jewish audience. Despite the lack of depth in Julia Cheever (and in Holmes’ performance), Holmes’ celebrity status on an intimate stage in which she plays an inaccessible celebrity…it’s too meta to miss.
The Wanderers
Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre Laura Pels Theatre
111 West 46th Street (between 6th and 7th Avenues)
January 26–April 2, 2023
Photo: Joan Marcus
