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[0:00] Ruthie Fierberg: I'm Ruthie Fierberg, and this is Why We Theater.

[0:05] Ruthie Fierberg: The podcast that digs into the onstage works we love to make the off-stage change we need.

[0:12] Ruthie Fierberg: After all, that is Why We Theater.

[0:16] Ruthie Fierberg: Hello, everyone, and thanks for tuning in.

[0:20] Ruthie Fierberg: Whew, last week's episode on The Color PURPLE.

[0:24] Ruthie Fierberg: We dug deep, and I'm really proud of the conversation we were able to have.

[0:30] Ruthie Fierberg: I learned so much from each of our guests, actor Isaiah Johnson and experts Dr. Shakiva Hall, Curtis Smith, and Simone Fuller.

[0:39] Ruthie Fierberg: And I just want to say again, I am so appreciative to each of them for their willingness to come on to the podcast, for sharing their personal stories, for sharing their professional expertise, and for being willing to enter into a conversation about generational trauma in the Black community with me.

[0:56] Ruthie Fierberg: In case you haven't listened to the main panel episode yet, a little refresh.

[1:01] Ruthie Fierberg: So last week we discussed the musical adaptation of The Color PURPLE.

[1:05] Ruthie Fierberg: I've been wanting to do this episode for forever.

[1:09] Ruthie Fierberg: And may I also just mention that the universe has plans because I have been in touch with Isaiah for months about recording an episode tied to the show, and we finally did it and edited it and released it, and it just happened to coincide with the first week of Black History Month.

[1:24] Ruthie Fierberg: So lesson to everyone, the universe provides and all things in time.

[1:41] Ruthie Fierberg: The COLOR Purple was originally a novel by Alice Walker, and it was adapted into a musical that first opened on Broadway in 2005 and revived in 2015.

[1:51] Ruthie Fierberg: Celie grows up in the early 1900s in the South.

[1:55] Ruthie Fierberg: A victim of multiple kinds of abuse, Celie is given to Mister, a widower in the community who needs a wife to run his house and raise his kids.

[2:03] Ruthie Fierberg: Mister is cruel and abusive.

[2:06] Ruthie Fierberg: So I wanted to look at the character of Mister specifically as we investigate generational trauma.

[2:12] Ruthie Fierberg: We spoke about what it was like for Isaiah to play Mister—why he wanted to, how it was healing, and how it was challenging.

[2:20] Ruthie Fierberg: If you've never heard Isaiah speak, you are in for a treat.

[2:25] Ruthie Fierberg: He is one of the greats of actors and humans.

[2:29] Ruthie Fierberg: We excavated together what it means to carry the trauma of your ancestors, how this type of trauma affects Black Americans, and how we can all heal that trauma.

[2:39] Ruthie Fierberg: And it got me thinking back to our episode of If I Forget with Steven Levinson from season one.

[2:46] Ruthie Fierberg: There is a line in the show about how we Jews and Judaism are a religion of ghosts, that we cling so tightly to the memory of the Holocaust that it seems to define us more than any ideology or ritual practice.

[3:00] Ruthie Fierberg: And a lot of that conversation focused on what defines a Jew, also about anti-Semitism and also about tribalism in general.

[3:08] Ruthie Fierberg: And I kept pushing on the question Steven poses through the character in If I Forget.

[3:15] Ruthie Fierberg: What would happen if we forgot the Holocaust?

[3:19] Ruthie Fierberg: Not if we denied it. Again, very different.

[3:22] Ruthie Fierberg: Not if we denied it, but what if we just backburnered that?

[3:27] Ruthie Fierberg: And after this episode of The Color PURPLE, my brain reverberated with a different question.

[3:33] Ruthie Fierberg: What if we healed?

[3:37] Ruthie Fierberg: Upon reflection, I also realized that at the time of recording If I Forget, I knew the term generational trauma, and yet I never said it once in that conversation.

[3:47] Ruthie Fierberg: And we talked about trauma, absolutely.

[3:49] Ruthie Fierberg: I even asked about how we could transmit stories of our past without transmitting the trauma that goes with it.

[3:55] Ruthie Fierberg: But it's interesting to me in hindsight that I did not name this as generational trauma in the same way I do talking about The Color PURPLE and slavery and Jim Crow.

[4:05] Ruthie Fierberg: And yet, children of Holocaust survivors were the origin point of research on generational trauma.

[4:11] Ruthie Fierberg: As Isaiah said last week, every culture has this.

[4:14] Ruthie Fierberg: It's not just Jews and Blacks or Black Jews.

[4:17] Ruthie Fierberg: Yet my instinct when talking about my own people was how do we avoid this instead of how do we heal this.

[4:32] Ruthie Fierberg: Isaiah spoke about how The Color PURPLE was healing for him and how he hoped it would bring healing to Black audience members.

[4:39] Ruthie Fierberg: Now, I love the theater. You all know that.

[4:41] Ruthie Fierberg: In case it wasn't clear, it's in the title of the podcast.

[4:45] Ruthie Fierberg: But I found that the theater can reinvigorate me, can make it feel like my troubles have gone, can bring me joy, which feels good, and is in a way healing.

[4:56] Ruthie Fierberg: And that was kind of what I always thought around that word when it relates to theater.

[5:02] Ruthie Fierberg: But I had not experienced, to my memory, a piece of theater that healed a trauma about my Jewish identity until I saw Joshua Harmon's most recent off-Broadway play at Manhattan Theater Club called Prayer for the French Republic.

[5:21] Ruthie Fierberg: The play just opened February 1st, and I cannot emphasize enough how badly I want everyone to see this.

[5:31] Ruthie Fierberg: First, Josh is just a phenomenal playwright.

[5:34] Ruthie Fierberg: You might know him as the author of Bad Jews, Significant Other, Skin Tight, all of which were at Roundabout Theater Company, and also the author of Admissions at Lincoln Center Theater.

[5:47] Ruthie Fierberg: David Cromer, who won the Tony for his direction of The Band's Visit, directs Prayer for the French Republic.

[5:53] Ruthie Fierberg: And what a team these two make.

[5:57] Ruthie Fierberg: The play takes place in both 2015-2016 Paris and 1945-1946 Paris, looking at multiple generations of French Jews in the same family.

[6:09] Ruthie Fierberg: So in the more current day, 2015-2016, rising anti-Semitism in Paris confronts the Benamou family, stoking fear and worry and forcing them to ask themselves the question: when do we leave?

[6:24] Ruthie Fierberg: When are the signs enough to tell you to leave?

[6:28] Ruthie Fierberg: And where do you go? Where is safe?

[6:32] Ruthie Fierberg: As they debate whether to leave their home in Paris or not, whether to move to Israel or not, the generational trauma was on display.

[6:40] Ruthie Fierberg: And for me to be really honest with you all, these are questions that I ask myself today as an American Jew.

[6:50] Ruthie Fierberg: To hear them out of the mouths of other people articulated my exact emotions and validated my fear and my experiences.

[7:00] Ruthie Fierberg: Joshua and the entire company captured the dichotomy of a people with many homes and no home, that untethered and in-betweenness part and parcel of being a Jew.

[7:13] Ruthie Fierberg: And in considering and discussing The Color PURPLE and the realness of the people in that story and their generational trauma, it opened me up to consider my own and to receive Prayer for the French Republic.

[7:26] Ruthie Fierberg: So this week I recommend it to you all.

[7:29] Ruthie Fierberg: And if you're interested in exploring the concepts of generational trauma across cultures, peoples, and countries, visit the International Center for Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma online.

[7:41] Ruthie Fierberg: I'll put the URL in the show notes.

[7:43] Ruthie Fierberg: You can also reference Dr. Yael Danieli's International Handbook of Multigenerational Legacies of Trauma.

[7:49] Ruthie Fierberg: You can find the work of Dr. Maria Yellow Horse Braveheart.

[7:53] Ruthie Fierberg: You can read Ocean Vuong's book On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.

[7:57] Ruthie Fierberg: And I hope this is a step towards healing ourselves and supporting the healing of others.

[8:02] Ruthie Fierberg: So go back and listen to The Color PURPLE episode.

[8:06] Ruthie Fierberg: Go back and listen to the If I Forget episode and buy a ticket to Prayer for the French Republic, currently playing off-Broadway at Manhattan Theater Club.

[8:15] Ruthie Fierberg: I'm not going to include a closing date at this moment in time, but know that when this episode is released on Thursday, February 10th, it is currently running.

[8:28] Ruthie Fierberg: And because it's Manhattan Theater Club, those of you who are under the age of 35 and under can buy $30 tickets in advance.

[8:36] Ruthie Fierberg: Their tickets begin at $59.

[8:39] Ruthie Fierberg: There is not a bad seat in the house.

[8:41] Ruthie Fierberg: I urge you to go if you can.

[8:44] Ruthie Fierberg: That's my recommendation for this week.

[8:46] Ruthie Fierberg: Keep theatering hard, y'all.

[8:52] Ruthie Fierberg: Why We Theater is a product of the Broadway Podcast Network.

[8:55] Ruthie Fierberg: It's edited and mixed by Derek Gunther.

[8:58] Ruthie Fierberg: If you like the show, subscribe at bpn.fm slash WWT or Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[9:07] Ruthie Fierberg: And don't forget to leave a review and tell your friends.

[9:10] Ruthie Fierberg: Our theme music is by Benjamin Velez.

[9:10] Ruthie Fierberg: Why We Theater is recorded in part on the traditional lands of the Wapinger and Lenape peoples.

[9:19] Ruthie Fierberg: I acknowledge this land was unjustly taken from them and pay my respect to elders both past and present.

[9:26] Ruthie Fierberg: Special thanks to Dori Berinstein, Alan Seales, Lee Silverman, Patrick Taylor, Tony Montaneri, Wesley Birdsall, Elena Mayer, and Suzanne Chipkin.

[9:37] Ruthie Fierberg: For more resources for change, info about our guests, and more, visit us at WhyWeTheater.com.