The Theatre: Impasse

“Prayer for the French Republic” comes to Broadway.

Helen Shaw

In 1791, France became the first European country to fully emancipate its Jewish population, and for more than two hundred years French rabbis have spoken a special Sabbath benediction. “May France enjoy a lasting peace and preserve her glorious rank among the nations,” they recite; the congregation replies, “Amen.” For centuries, Jewish identity in France—despite the Dreyfus case, despite Vichy collaboration, despite waves of hate crime—has been tightly linked to the state. But in Joshua Harmon’s “Prayer for the French Republic,” now on Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, that contract shows signs of strain. It’s 2016 in Paris, and the Benhamou family is wondering if they should leave an increasingly hostile France. Since the twenty-six-year-old son, Daniel (Aria Shahghasemi), has begun wearing a yarmulke, he has…

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The New Yorker (Digital) - 1 Issue, January 22, 2024

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