Reviews  

Non-Jews Adopted into Jewish Families-Theme of Recent Plays
by Irene Backalenick

Two recent off-Broadway plays ("Sarah, Sarah" and "Rite of Return") were, by strange coincidence, devoted to the same topic, so it seems appropriate to examine them side by side. Both deal with Jewish women who adopt abandoned children born into another faith-and the consequences thereof. Both plays are concerned with continuity, with how each generation impacts upon the next.

But there the resemblances end. How different the approach and values of each! How different the quality of writing and direction! "Sarah, Sarah," playing at the Manhattan Theatre Club, is by far the superior. "Rite of Return," an East Village offering at the Theater for the New City, falls short for many reasons.

"Sarah, Sarah" may be faulted for one reason only: the two acts are, in fact, two separate plays, though both involve the same family. If only playwright Daniel Goldfarb had focused on the second act alone-a perceptive, heart-rending piece.

Over all, "Sarah, Sarah" concerns the Grosberg family as it moves from insularity to global thinking, if you will. Sarah Grosberg, matriarch of the family, was herself abandoned and raised in a Siberian orphanage, and has no knowledge of her parents, though she knows she is Jewish. As a grown woman, she clings to her son Arthur, her only child, and tries to sabotage his upcoming marriage. There is no room for others in this tight little circle!

Hence the first act. The second act looks at the family's next generation, some 40 years later. Arthur does marry, despite his mother's disapproval.. And in this act Arthur and his daughter travel to China, so that the daughter, a single woman, can adopt a baby. The playwright brilliantly reveals the anxieties of the woman who takes on the Chinese child. That baby-tiny, weak and suffering from unknown ailments--will be named Sarah, after her great-grandmother. Though the newest Grosberg has Asian features, the line continues. The play (at least its second act) could not be more relevant in this age of international adoptions. In this absorbing piece, Goldfarb goes to the heart of the matter. Will the new little Sarah survive, thrive, and be a credit to the family name? Can a family connect to another ethnic/racial group and still maintain its own identity?
"Rite of Return" is a different cup of tea (or plate of humus) entirely. Here, a young woman bitterly resents the American/Jewish woman who adopted her. Why was she raised as a Jew when her origins were Catholic and Filipino? She visits Israel with relatives of her adopted mother, and there finds an outlet for her true feelings among the Palestinians-the oppressed, as she sees them.

Apart from the fact that this play is long and repetitive, it sins more in its substance than in its style. Playwright/director Victoria Linchong has given us a maddeningly pro-Palestinian anti-Israel tirade. In this one-sided drama, all the Palestinians are noble, decent, and long-suffering, while all the Israelis are villains (except for one soldier with some decent instincts). Linchong never indicates that the Israelis might have some justification on their side. Moreover, "Rite of Return" manages to be anti-Semitic as well as anti-Israeli. The Jewish American mother back home is depicted as shallow, indifferent, incapable of loving her adopted daughter.

Unfortunately, we were not able to see the ending of this play (since the play ran longer than we were told it would, and we ran into scheduling problems). In fairness to the playwright, it may be that she turned the Israelis and other Jews into human beings before the close of the play.
So much for two tales of adoptees and their adjustments to life.