{"id":207012,"date":"2026-03-26T15:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T15:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/207012\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T15:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T15:18:13","slug":"gablestage-presentation-of-prayer-for-the-french-republic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/207012\/","title":{"rendered":"GableStage presentation of Prayer for the French Republic"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2014, artistic director Joseph Adler staged \u201cBad Jews\u201d \u2014 Joshua Harmon\u2019s 2012 Off-Broadway hit \u2014 at GableStage. The dark comedy was a four-character play rife with family tensions, judgment and competing ideas of faith. The cast and its director delivered what was a hallmark of GableStage: an intimate, actor-focused, and sharply directed piece that had audiences thinking as much as feeling family dynamics and what it meant to be a young Jew in the modern world.<\/p>\n

More than a decade later, GableStage\u2019s artistic director Bari Newport returns to Harmon with \u201cPrayer for the French Republic,\u201d which was written a decade after \u201cBad Jews.\u201d While that play confined its drama to a single apartment and a handful of family members, \u201cPrayer\u201d casts a wider net, wrestling with identity, faith, and the weight of memory on a much larger scale.<\/p>\n

Newport\u2019s skillful direction drives the more than 3\u00bd-hour play (including two intermissions), making every minute count. Time breezes by \u2014 these are people you want to get to know. Newport\u2019s shaping of characters, set in two different time periods, and pacing allows for the broader historical stakes to resonate, yet never sacrifices Harmon\u2019s gift for storytelling. By the final bows, there\u2019s an understanding that this is a story that deserves to be seen at this moment.<\/p>\n

\"From From left, Jason Peck as Lucien, Patti Gardner as Irma, Holden Peck as Young Pierre, and Bruce Sabath as Adolphe in GableStage\u2019s production of Joshua Harmon\u2019s \u2018Prayer for the French Republic\u2019 playing through Sunday, April 19. Photo by Magnus Stark courtesy of GableStage <\/p>\n

\u201cPrayer for the French Republic\u201d follows a French Jewish family in two separate time periods: 2016\u20132017 and 1944\u20131946. Although in different eras, they both question their belonging and how far they must go to protect themselves and their families.<\/p>\n

For the present-day Benhamou family, three days that shook France are still fresh on their minds. Ripped from real news headlines, on Jan. 7, 2015, two brothers stormed the offices of the French satirical weekly \u201cCharlie Hebdo\u201d and killed 12 people; a day later, four people were killed and taken as hostages at a kosher supermarket \u2014 all in all, 17 people died in three days of attacks.<\/p>\n

The Benhamous are also dealing with anti-Semitic acts close to home. Daniel (Jeremy Sevelovitz), a teacher at a Jewish school, is attacked on the streets of Paris for wearing a yarmulke. His mother, Marcelle (Elizabeth Price), says he has a target on his back for his public display and begs him to wear a baseball cap in public if he wants to cover his head.<\/p>\n

His father, Charles (Stephen Trovillion), wants to take things further. The family should move out of Paris to a place where Daniel would not have to worry about persecution. All of the violence is forcing a moment of reckoning: Is France still home, or has it become too dangerous to stay?<\/p>\n

Interwoven with this contemporary struggle are flashbacks to the 1940s, where Daniel\u2019s great-grandparents, Adolphe (Bruce Sabath) and Irma (Patti Gardner) Salomon, are facing life in Nazi-occupied France. When their son, Lucien (Jason Peck), and grandson, Pierre (Holden Peck), return after the liberation of Nazi camps, Irma wants to know where they were and what happened. She and Adolphe stayed in their Paris apartment during the occupation while they awaited word of their missing children and grandchildren.<\/p>\n

\"Patti Patti Gardner and Bruce Sabath in GableStage\u2019s \u2018Prayer for the French Republic.\u2019 Photo by Magnus Stark courtesy of GableStage <\/p>\n

As Irma, who painfully waits for news of the fate of her family, Gardner embodies the agony \u2014 her performance is a quiet, simmering slow burn that shows both despair and hope. When Lucien shows up, she wants to know it all, every detail, but he doesn\u2019t want to talk about it. Gardner\u2019s Irma explodes: \u201c. . . for two years at this table, losing my mind, never knowing where the children were, how they were, what was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guiding the action, Harmon has created a narrator. Michael McKenzie plays Patrick Salamon, narrator and brother of Marcelle, and McKenzie is a standout, capturing both cynicism and wit. He also steps into the present-day scenes to interact with the family, a tricky device that he and the director make feel completely natural.<\/p>\n

Using the fish-out-of-water, American-in-Paris device, in the first act we meet Molly (Casey Sacco), a distant cousin of Marcelle (Elizabeth Price), who is in France for a year of school. Marcelle is the modern-day matriarch, a psychiatrist-turned-professor running a university department. After growing up in a non-traditional Jewish household (her father was Jewish, her mother was Catholic), Marcelle married Charles and converted to Judaism. Patrick calls B.S. on her Jewish devotion. And Daniel\u2019s yarmulke is maybe a bit of B.S., too, the product of devotion to a girl who is now an ex.<\/p>\n

The most outspoken of the family is Elodie, and perfectly cast in the role is Irina Kaplan as the fiercely assertive sister who has no fear of speaking her mind. Kaplan has commanding, comical moments throughout the play but shines in one of the play\u2019s most memorable. In Act II, in a \u201cnot-even-room-for-a-breath\u201d monologue, she covers topics from European Jewish suffering, to the United States\u2019 new president, to 9\/11, and on and on, testing the limits of patience for the person on the receiving end, Molly, and for the audience. Who hasn\u2019t sat in a bar and listened to an Elodie?<\/p>\n

\"Michael Michael McKenzie as Patrick Salomon in Joshua Harmon\u2019s \u2018Prayer for the French Republic\u2019 at GableStage. Photo by Magnus Stark courtesy of GableStage <\/p>\n

As matriarch Marcelle, Price has played similar high-emotion, authoritative figures in other local productions. Here, she begins with such intensity that it seems daunting for the character to climb even higher emotionally over the course of the multi-hour production. She does, however, find space in more emotionally nuanced moments that show depth beyond the initial fire.<\/p>\n

Don Bearden, who shows up later in the play as the now-elderly Pierre, is the perfect congenial host, sort of taking over for narrator Patrick. Bearden, the patriarchal Salomon, who still runs the family\u2019s piano business at eighty-something years old, sits at the piano. He\u2019s the one who, even at his advanced age, still has questions that haunt all of the generations. Pierre says to grandson Daniel: \u201cYou\u2019re a thinking person, why do they hate us?\u201d And there isn\u2019t one answer \u2014 Daniel says maybe it\u2019s because \u201cwe don\u2019t want to be like them,\u201d while Elodie surmises that \u201cthey hate us because they cannot understand how we are still here.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Harmon play progresses, present day and past are constantly moving in and out of the same Paris apartment. The past and present seamlessly shift, as do projections and lighting, guided with clarity and care, acting as mirrors of memory and reality.<\/p>\n

\"The The sprawling set of the Paris apartment that spans generations in \u2018Prayer for the French Republic.\u2019 Photo by Magnus Stark courtesy of GableStage <\/p>\n

Frank J. Oliva\u2019s set \u2014 the sprawling pre-war Paris apartment \u2014 and Marina Pareja\u2019s costumes quietly do essential work, creating distinct worlds for the 1940s and present-day while keeping both eras lived-in and immediate. Prop designer Jennifer Wake adds visual authenticity with vintage items that feel truly treasured across generations. Together, the design elements make the apartment itself a character, holding the memories of both past and present. Jessica Winward\u2019s lighting helps define the different periods \u2014 with sepia tones creeping into the past and brighter colors for modern day. Sean McGinley\u2019s sound design ties it all together with atmospheric cues that bridge the eras as do Jamie Godwin\u2019s colorfully gorgeous projection designs.<\/p>\n

The play is written in English, though Harmon has the characters refer to themselves in the script as speaking in French. Between the lines it seems that Harmon is making a commentary on language– that it, too, is a kind of disguise, another layer in how identity is concealed.<\/p>\n

The title \u201cPrayer for the French Republic\u201d comes from a real piece of history: French Jews once had to sign documents declaring their loyalty to the Republic. But as the Benhamou family leaves to head to another country, they don\u2019t feel the need to be loyal anymore.<\/p>\n

What makes this play even more \u201cof the moment\u201d is how the family\u2019s questions about belonging feel universal. The uncertainty, the fear of not being safe, the feeling of not fitting in \u2014 these are experiences many people, including those in the United States, are right now grappling with. This powerful production leaves a lingering sense that belonging and safety are not bound by time or place.<\/p>\n

If you go \"Casey Casey Sacco and Jeremy Sevelovitz in \u2018Prayer for the French Republic\u2019 at GableStage with Jamie Godwin\u2019s projection designs. Photo by Magnus Stark courtesy of GableStage <\/p>\n

What: \u201cPrayer for the French Republic\u201d by Joshua Harmon<\/p>\n

Where: GableStage in the Biltmore Hotel, 1200 Anastasia Ave., Coral Gables<\/p>\n

When: 7 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. 2 p.m. Wednesday and Sunday. 1 p.m., Saturday. Through Sunday, April 19.<\/p>\n

Tickets: $65 and $75 including fees.<\/p>\n

Information: 305-445-1119 or gablestage.org<\/p>\n

ArtburstMiami.com<\/a> is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don\u2019t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Patti Patti Gardner as Irma Salomon in \u2018Prayer for the French Republic\u2019 at GableStage. Photo by Magnus Stark courtesy of GableStage \"Irina Irina Kaplan as the outspoken member of the Benhamou family, Elodie, and Casey Sacco as visiting cousin, Molly, in \u2018Prayer for the French Republic.\u2019 Photo by Magnus Stark courtesy of GableStage <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2014, artistic director Joseph Adler staged \u201cBad Jews\u201d \u2014 Joshua Harmon\u2019s 2012 Off-Broadway hit \u2014 at GableStage.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207013,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10428,94894,94896,123,125,124,94895],"class_list":["post-207012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-coral-gables","tag-gablestage","tag-joshua-harmon","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-prayer-for-the-french-republic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}