NEW YORK– How far will you go for that special someone? This is the question asked in “The Sabbath Girl: A New Musical,” a romantic story about finding love where one least expects it. Presented by Penguin Rep Theatre and featuring a book by Cary Gitter, music by Neil Berg, lyrics by Berg and Gitter, and conceived and directed by Joe Brancato, the show is having its New York premiere at 59E59 Theaters.
Angie (Marilyn Caserta), an Italian-American, is in her New York City apartment one Friday evening when there is a knock on her door. Seth (Max Wolkowitz), her neighbor from down the hall, is looking for someone to turn on his air conditioner, as he is an Orthodox Jew and cannot engage in any sort of work during the Sabbath. After a bit of verbal awkwardness followed by a bit of bantering, Angie agrees to help, becoming, in essence, his “Sabbath Girl.”
Angie and Max may seem to come from different worlds, but, in fact, have more in common than they first realize, each still feeling the aftereffects of an unhappy relationship. After breaking up with her boyfriend, Angie has buried herself in work, despite her grandmother Sophia’s (Diana DiMarzio) urging not to give up on matters of the heart. Seth, who runs a knish shop on the Lower East Side with his sister Rachel (Lauren Singerman), is still dealing with the repercussions of his divorce—the end result of an arranged marriage where love never entered the picture.
Seth also shares Angie’s interest in the arts and has collected numerous literary works by Jewish authors. He’s also begun to try writing himself. Angie’s lifelong love of all things artistic has caused her to invest everything she has in a downtown art gallery, which is now struggling financially and turns out to be not that far from the knish shop. Angie is looking to Blake (Rory Max Kaplan) as a possible savior for her business. An in-demand, up-and-coming young artist looking to have his first New York show, Blake’s talent is only surpassed by his equally large ego.
It’s not long before Angie and Seth start to have feelings for one another, much to Rachel’s dismay, though her antagonism is more due to fear for her brother than anything else—she having long since learned that there is safety in staying with one’s own kind. Also brought up is the importance of tradition and how it’s not easy to change one’s path regarding something that has endured for thousands of years. Two of the characters also fall into the trap of too quickly misjudging another, each initially relying on incomplete impressions, instead of realizing there may be something much deeper beneath, with cultural differences and pressures threatening to overwhelm what Angie and Seth are taking tentative steps to build.
The score, beautifully delivered by the cast, is delightful, with each of the numbers helping to add to the narrative without diluting or otherwise taking away from the underlying text. Some of the musical high points include “A Life in Art,” which explains Angie’s passion for the subject; “Roseland,” where Sophia recalls a love story of her own; and “Assets,” a duet between Rachel and Seth about certain elements one brings into a relationship.
Caserta and Wolkowitz do a wonderful job as Angie and Max, each showing their character to be at an emotional crossroad, even if one of them doesn’t quite realize it yet. The actors and director Brancato allow Angie and Seth’s attraction to develop slowly, so as to catch them almost unaware, rather than it being a love at first sight situation. Kaplan is enjoyably over-the-top as the “it’s always all about me” Blake, while DiMarzio’s character serves as a strong familial anchor for Angie, offering bits of common sense and wistful nostalgia in her performance.
Singerman, who also originated the role of Rachel in an earlier, nonmusical version of “The Sabbath Girl,” is excellent in the part. Her character is a far cry from a simple stereotype. She instead shows herself to be a strong-willed person, with her own sense of identity and purpose, and who is faithful to her culture because she has chosen to be so—although she can be a bit too single-minded at times, like her efforts to continually set up Seth with different eligible female members from her Shul.
The scenic design work by Christopher and Justin Swader is very good. Their efforts transform the almost bare stage to Angie and Seth’s respective apartments, the art gallery, and the knish shop, among other locations.
“The Sabbath Girl” offers an intriguing situation, characters you root for almost from the beginning, a score quite enjoyable and a cast that gives it their all. This one is a winner.
