A Walk with Mr. Heifetz

C-

James Inverne’s impressive resume includes work as arts writer and commentator for the Daily Mail, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and the Financial Times, editor of Gramophone and founder of magazines for the Sundance Institute and other arts institutions. He marks his playwriting debut with this well-intentioned but dramatically inert new play for Primary Stages at the Cherry Lane Theatre. In Act I, set in Palestine in 1926 under the British mandate, we meet Yehuda Sharett (Yuval Boim), kibbutz choir director, composer and amateur violinist, who has just attended a concert by Jascha Heifetz (Adam Green). He takes Heifetz for a walk in the hills during which he rebukes the famous violinist for the egotism of his career but also implores him for advice on how to become a better composer. Heifetz suggests he go to Berlin to study. In Act II, set in 1945, Yehuda is visited by his brother Moshe (Erik Lochtefeld; Napoli, Brooklyn), who went on to become foreign minister and then prime minister of Israel. Yehuda has stopped writing music and has become a recluse after his wife and sister are killed in an accident. Moshe attempts to lure him back into the world by persuading him how important music is to the soul of a nation. It’s all very high-minded, but, infortunately, not very dramatic. The different accents of the two brothers interject a discordant note. Boim’s Israeli accent is so thick that I could not distinguish between “walk” and “work.” In addition to the three actors, there is a violinist (Mariella Haubs) whose occasional short passages were more of a distraction than an enhancement. The set by Wilson Chin (Cost of Living, My Mañana Comes) converts from a rocky, hilly scene in the first act to a gloomy apartment in the second. The period costumes by Jen Caprio seemed appropriate to their characters. Andrew Leynse’s direction was unfussy. Earlier this season, Primary Stages presented another play (The Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens and Count Leo Tolstoy: Discord) that was more polemical than dramatic. While this play was a big improvement over the earlier one, I think it’s time to seek a new direction. Running time: 90 minutes including intermission.