“In Discher’s inert production, ‘Vilna’ feels dutiful and strangely hermetic...Hudock and Mulcahy give thoughtful performances, and the rest of the cast is mostly fine...But the many characters and relationships are too shallowly written to allow us to care about them...As ‘Vilna’ unfolds over 18 years, its sheer sprawl dilutes it...The play feels isolated — each scene sealed off, divorced from the larger historical tragedy."
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"'Vilna' tells a story of such historical importance, bearing a message of such timeless relevance, that it is a great pity it hasn't been told more forcefully...A sincere and reasonably well-constructed work, 'Vilna' is top-heavy with characters and incidents, the latter unfolding with a plodding determination that is the very opposite of drama...Joseph Discher's direction is a one-note affair, even when the action includes throat-cutting, attempted hanging, and other tortures."
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"'Vilna,' written by Ira Fuchs, is one of the more successful stage dramas to deal with the Holocaust, a notoriously difficult subject to portray on stage. That this play succeeds as well as it does is to the credit of its director Joseph Discher who assiduously avoids clichés and stereotypes and its cast of fine actors, led by the great Mark Jacoby, a star of Broadway musicals, here displaying heart-breaking depth of emotion in two parts."
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“’Vilna’ was a very difficult play to write but...Fuchs, inspired by the discovery of an underground escape tunnel dug by a few survivors...manages to cover significant moments in 18 years in the lives of one Jewish family, the Zeidels. Most of the characters in the play were real people. And while the scenes depicted are fiction, they align with actual chronological events...Ably directed by Discher, cleverly lighted by Feiner, with very convincing fight direction by Sordelet.”
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"'Vilna' is an emotionally draining depiction of atrocities for a human being to see, hear, and witness...It is rare to hear an audience gasp in New York City – especially in theatre. During a palpable, unexpected, and raw scene between German officers there was a collective gasp with one patron screaming out. Filing out of the theater Fuchs said, 'Please tell a friend, we can never forget.'"
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"An informative but rather static drama…The multipronged drama throws its net far too wide…Some of this is strong stuff. But the effect is more momentary than cumulative because the events are stretched out over so long a period of time. This robs the play of more than temporary intensity, as scene follows scene, with actors…dutifully carrying furniture on and off as quickly as possible while we wait...Eventually, the dramatic tension decreases instead of the opposite."
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"A work that should be mandatory viewing for everyone over 18...Joseph Discher’s direction is strong. He and Fuchs slowly and methodically introduce the audience to the various characters and ratchet up the tension as the story progresses. While the early part of the play is perhaps a bit too by the numbers, that feeling vanishes as the tale unfolds...'Vilna' reminds audiences in no uncertain terms why these stories should continue to be told."
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“Sitting in the audience...feels like attending a history lecture. After the framing-device opening, ‘Vilna’ descends into...exposition...Fuchs and director Discher make a mess of telling a simple story...Introducing fifty or so scenes displaying evil tells us nothing new, and slows the play down. Had the show been tightened to a core story, instead of flailing off into...how bad the Nazis were, perhaps ‘Vilna’ might have had a strong impact. As it is, the story of 'Vilna' gets lost in the telling.”
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