Winner of the 2022 Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Play, Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic bursts onto Broadway after MTC’s highly acclaimed extended, sold-out Off-Broadway run. In 1944, a Jewish couple in Paris desperately awaits news of their missing family. More than 70 years later, the couple’s great-grandchildren find themselves facing the same question as their ancestors: "Are we safe?" This celebrated work by the author of Bad Jews and Significant Other is about history, home and the effects of an ancient hatred. The New York Times calls it "thought-provoking, heart-wrenching and wickedly funny." Directing is David Cromer, a Tony Award® winner for The Band's Visit.
That’s not to say that “Prayer for the French Republic” should have been about something other than the story it tells. But it doesn’t tell it in a compelling or nuanced manner — despite Harmon having set himself up to succeed with a flashback story that could, but does not, provide real context and present-day interlocutors who could, but do not, push the Benhamous beyond platitudes. The debates the Benhamous are having are ones that are happening in our own republic — at dinner tables and in group chats, on Instagram and at protests. And in that way the play is right on time. But for all the capaciousness of the show’s story, what it’s ultimately trying to do is narrow: To explain a choice a group of characters make by proving that those opposed to it just aren’t being serious. It’s a case, it turns out, that takes three hours to conclusively prove.
Off Broadway, Patrick was played by the canny and empathetic actor Richard Topol. Currently, the part belongs to Anthony Edwards (of TV’s E.R.), who has a wry, befuddled quality that works in group scenes, but leaves him unfocused in monologues directed to the audience. Still, if Prayer’s frame has grown wobbly, the central story remains vibrant and confidently driven by three outstanding women from the original cast: the fierce-willed Aidem; Francis Benhamou as Marcelle’s brilliant but bipolar daughter, Elodie; and Molly Ranson as college-age Molly, an American cousin many times removed who’s spending a gap year France—while getting drawn into Benhamou drama.
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