The company of 'Birthright' off Broadway on tracking friendship and identity in a changing world

Tony Award-winning playwright Jonathan Spector's newest work explores the shifting dynamics of American Jewish life through a group of friends over 18 years.

Summary

• Birthright is a play following a group of Jewish friends in the 18 years following their Birthright trip to Israel and how their relationship changes amid global conflict
• Playwright Jonathan Spector; director Teddy Bergman; and actors Hale Appleman and Molly Bernard discuss the various perspectives reflected in the show and how it avoids easy answers about American Jewish identity and life today

The deeply personal and often hilarious evolution of community and belonging is center stage in Birthright, a new Off-Broadway play currently running at MCC Theater through July 26. Written by Tony Award winner Jonathan Spector (Eureka Day) and directed by Teddy Bergman (Mother Russia), the play serves as a powerful portrait of friendship across time.

The story begins in 2006 on the Birthright Israel program, an initiative that provides a free trip to Israel for Jewish college students who have never been to the country on an organized tour. From that transformative 10-day journey, the play tracks a tight-knit group of friends through nearly two decades of cultural, technological, and ideological shifts.

Finding the story in a fractured era

The spark for Birthright arrived in the complex aftermath of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the West Bank. Spector recalled the initial, daunting pitch for the play, which debuted at Miami New Drama before its current Off-Broadway run: “I had gotten a call from Michel Hausmann who runs Miami New Drama, a few weeks after October 7, 2023 [when Hamas launched deadly attacks on Israel], and he was like, ‘I want you to write me a play about what’s happening right now in the Jewish community.’ And I was like, ‘Absolutely not. There’s no way I’m going to. That’s a horrible idea and an insane thing to do.’”

However, as Spector conducted interviews to understand the modern Jewish experience, a clear pattern emerged. “I think one universal theme was that this was the hardest time in anyone’s life to be an American Jew, regardless of where people stood, and that relationships between friends and family would become strained over it,” Spector said.

He also noted how deeply the internal community lines have shifted over the years. “The primary divisions within American Jewish life have not been about religious practice: ‘Are you frum [a Yiddish word describing religious devotion]? Are you conservative?’ Instead, it’s been: ‘What is your position on Israel?’”

Staging time and humor

Bringing that vision to life meant authentically tracking the passage of time without losing the heart of the characters’ bonds. Bergman noted how well the script achieves this. “Jonathan is so fabulously adept at capturing moments and time on stage and it felt so embedded in the three acts of the play, the first of which takes place in 2006, the second in 2016 and the third in 2024,” Bergman said.

Despite the heavy thematic weight of shifting ideologies, the production remains grounded in comedy. “Jonathan would not be doing his job in depicting a group of Jewish friends if they did not use humor to deal with the heaviest of situations, because that has been a distinctly Jewish tactic for millennia. It is culturally authentic,” Bergman added.

The weight of history on stage

For the actors, performing 18 years' worth of the characters' lives required navigating massive internal shifts. Hale Appleman (The Magicians) plays Lev, a character seeking meaning as his reality shifts around him. “I don’t think the desire for transcendence ever leaves him. I don’t think the desire for spiritual meaning ever leaves him. I think his spiritual path diverts quite suddenly, but it’s repurposed into a different career format where he thinks he can be of actual service,” Appleman said.

Appleman also spoke to the unique challenge and beauty of the play’s timeline. “It is a rare gift to explore how a person’s core stays the same even as the world around them completely transforms,” Appleman added. “You get to see how these early, foundational bonds of friendship can stretch over 18 years, showing us what breaks and what manages to endure.”

Molly Bernard (Younger), who plays Izzy, appreciates portraying a character with an evolution that mirrors many contemporary experiences. “Izzy starts as a really good Jewish girl. She goes to Israel on Birthright, sees some things, and it changes her whole life path,” Bernard noted.

Bernard emphasized Izzy’s grace under pressure, contrasting the character’s calm onstage demeanor with the highly emotional anguish by real-life people regarding the ongoing conflict; she cited actor Mandy Patinkin as an example of someone doing so zealously. Amid the sheer weight of the issues Izzy is navigating, “she’s very measured. She’s not hysterical, she’s not crying. She’s not really screaming, even,” Bernard said. “She’s just making her points, and she very gracefully is able to make these points because she is firm in her moral center.”

Leaving room for complexity

Ultimately, Birthright avoids easy answers, instead offering a deeply human portrait of connection and resilience. When asked what they hope audiences take away from the production, the creative team pointed to the enduring power of these relationships.

“I think people will have found something cathartic because of the history and love they share. They stay in the room to experience these hard conversations, which is something that doesn’t happen often,” Spector said. “I’ve heard from people who really appreciate getting to be present for that.”

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Photo credit: Birthright off Broadway. (Photos by Emilio Madrid)