MY APOLOGIES, TONY AWARDSJune 16, 2023

Last Sunday, Carolyn and I tuned in—late—to Broadway’s Tony Awards TV show. When the nominees for Best Play were announced, I was certain one show had no chance. 

Of the five nominees, Leopoldstadt, by Tom Stoppard, presented a multi-generational Jewish family’s experiences in Vienna from 1899 to 1955. These included discussing escape plans following Nazi Germany’s takeover in 1938.

I didn’t think that the Tony would go to Leopoldstadt given competition from plays with African-American themes: Ain’t No Mo’, Between Riverside and Crazy; a Black riff on Hamlet, Fat Ham; and a play about disabled people, Cost of Living. 

I’ve not seen any of these, but as Tony nominees, they had a lot going for them. 

Why my pessimism? American antisemitism has increasingly shown its public face, right and left. I’ve developed a sad take on the response to Jewish themes in the arts: The Jewish story is passe. Jews were interesting during the great immigration from Eastern Europe—the subject of my new novel, The Short (Pun Intended) Redemptive Life of Little Ned. Post-World War Two, the Holocaust and integration into American life (a topic requiring considerable discussion) produced more Jewish stories.

Soviet-Jewish immigration stoked literary fires then died down. Coming up—although they’d always been there: stories by African and Native Americans, Latinos, Asians (East and South) and Pacific Islanders. Ethnic and LGBTQ themes and artists found audiences and readers—rightfully so. 

I had little hope that members of the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League, the Tony voters, would consider plays with Jewish themes or Jewish actors timely and significant.

Tony Awards, I apologize. I was wrong. 

Leopoldstadt won for Best Play, Featured Actor (Brandon Uranowitz), Costume Design (Brigitte Reiffenstuel) and Direction (Patrick Marber).

More Jewish shows and actors collected Tonys. 

Parade won for Best Revival of a Musical. It tells the story of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory superintendent in Georgia wrongfully convicted of the murder of an employee—a 13-year-old girl. In 1915, after Frank’s death sentence was commuted, he was kidnapped from prison in Marietta, Georgia, and lynched. A protagonist in Little Ned, Clara Robbins (nee Kayleh Rubenstein), is disturbed by the frightening news, as was all American Jewry. Michael Arden, Parade’s director, also won a Tony.  

Non-Jewish actor Sean Hayes won Best Actor for playing the brilliant, witty and emotionally disturbed Jewish piano virtuoso Oscar Levant in Good Night, Oscar. (In the late ’50s/early ’60s, I saw Oscar Levant on Jack Paar’s “Tonight Show”). Miriam Silverman won Best Featured Actress, Play for The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, written by the acclaimed African-American playwright Lorraine Hansberry and first staged in 1964.

I don’t want to underestimate antisemitism in the United States. Baseless hatred of Jews has long existed here and needs to be called out. But I don’t want to raise the issue where it doesn’t exist.

I have to believe that the Tonys awarded to Jewish-themed shows don’t represent a “pity vote” to correct others’ wrongdoings. Rather, they represent a genuine recognition of art, craft and talent. When I predicted that Leopoldstadt couldn’t win, Carolyn reminded me that the theater community long has been open to people of all ethnicities, sexual preferences and gender identities.

May the rest of America follow. 

The Short (Pun Intended) Redemptive Life of Little Ned is now available in softcover or e-book from Amazon, barnesandnoble.com, and iuniverse.com. Or order from your favorite bookstore.

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