Review: THE WANDERERS at Marylebone Theatre

When Anna Ziegler began writing THE WANDERERS during her second pregnancy where it had existed as two very different and distinct plays. As time passed and deadlines loomed, she realised that the two stories had obvious and natural overlaps and chose to combine them.

The two plays were initially about an arranged marriage in Brooklyn’s Hasidic community and marital discord between two secular novelists a generation later. The combined play has the former couple become the parents of the more successful novelist in the second and in places, the weave works remarkably well. However, everything isn’t instantly comprehensible in director Igor Golyak’s staging and matters take a while to fully embed with the audience.

Set designer Jan Papplebaum has used a clear screening device to separate the darkened up stage area from the lit downstage space where most of the action takes place. The screen is further used to draw images and words further emphasising the play’s off-broadway credentials and unapologetically experimental theatre feel.

Former writer Sophie (Paksie Vernon) exists in the shadow of her more successful and self-absorbed writer husband Abe (Alexander Forsyth) but is considering finding her voice again. Meanwhile, after decades of marriage, his fanciful and neurotic temperament have led him to indulge in an online email relationship with a beautiful film actress Julia (Anna Popplewell) who is apparently a fan and has been enamoured since hearing him read at a book launch event. The Hasidic couple (Abe’s parents) are traditionalist Schmuli (Eddie Toll) and the more free thinking Esther (Katerina Tannenbaum). Stifled by the requirement to adhere to petty rules and indoctrinations, Esther has grown tired and bored by the life she is forced to lead and draws comfort from little wins like listening to the radio and books. Seeing this as a threat to traditional values and under pressure from his father and the community, Schmuli eventually shares information which leads to a tragic and irreversible sequence of events beyond his control.

Much of the technical set-up requires the cast to share information and explanations for what is happening or about to happen, as such it isn’t until the second half of the play that we actually feel invested in the characters and their journey. When they eventually arrive after the interval, both of the key revelations of the play prove utterly devastating and take on a powerful significance, both for the characters in the context of their lives, and more especially for how we relate to them as audience members. Both wives are treated cruelly and disrespectfully in the course of events leading to separations. Meanwhile, their husbands are left with hard lessons to learn from their weakness, disloyalty and petty selfishness.

It’s hardly a barrel of laughs, but there is sensitivity and depth in the work, which is delivered with gentleness and conviction by the actors.

Including an interval, The Wanderers runs for 2 hours and 20mins and continues at Marylebone Theatre until 29th November.