'Two Jews' Premiering at Playwrights Through Weekend

"Two Jews Walk Into a War …" is having its world premiere at Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey through Sunday.

The new comedy-drama about the last two Jews left in Kabul, Afghanistan, also had its world premiere at a Florida theater last fall and at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch in December and will have one more later this year at a second Florida theater.

"Two Jews" is having a "rolling world premiere" through a program of the National New Play Network, which provides $6,000 to each of three member theaters that agree to produce the same new play within 12 months.

The Continued Life of New Plays Fund was created to give new plays a chance at a longer life than most new works, which may get one production, then die, said Seth Rozin, who wrote "Two Jews" and is producing artistic director of InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia.

In fact, one production then oblivion was the fate of two other plays, one by an American and one by a British playwright, that took their inspiration from the same 2002 New York Times article that caught Rozin's eye about six years later.

It described Zbolon Semantov and Isaak Levi, the last two Jews in the Afghan capital who lived next door to each other but feuded continuously over the care of two nearly abandoned temples there.

Rozin, one of the founders of the National New Play Network, said every playwright's dream is to see his play performed by three different casts—the Playwrights and New Jersey Rep productions shared the same cast, director and set; brought to life by three different creative teams; presented to three types of audiences who laughed at different things; and reviewed by media in three different regions.

Rozin rewrote parts of the play during rehearsals for the first production, then made some changes, including the order of two scenes, before it was done in New Jersey. He plans to tweak it more before the next production.

The first production "helped me focus on what I needed to do and what I needed to tell the next production team," he said.

The first part of "Two Jews" is meant to be performed like a vaudeville show, with the two characters facing the audience and trading jabs and one-liners, punctuated in this case by gunfire and sounds of a war going on in the background. As the two characters lose some of their hatred for each other and begin to work together, the play's style becomes more naturalistic, Rozin said.

The change in tone is tricky and generally was missing in the first production, he noted.

The second production also better carried out his intent regarding the growing piles of crumpled paper on the stage floor that represent mistakes one character makes as he takes dictation from the other in an effort to create a Torah, which they agree is the first step in reviving their Jewish community.

Rozin sent "Two Jews" to John Pietrowski, Playwrights' artistic director, soon after he finished the first draft about a year ago. Pietrowski read it, then called Rozin and promised to stage the play.

Pietrowski even agreed to perform in the New Jersey production—he plays the character named Zeblyan, the more worldly Jew who runs a carpet store in Kabul and eventually agrees to take dictation from the more observant Ishaq though he can't stop himself from questioning the words he is writing.

While Rozin did not write the part with Pietrowski in mind, he said he saw the head of Playwrights in the role once he thought of it. "He's a man of the people … a rabble-rouser who questions everything … he's got a working man's sensibility with a big brain."

Pietrowski said he was attracted to the part because of Zeblyan's journey, in which he confronts the Torah, struggles with it and "comes to a very important and necessary spiritual awakening."

"I also like the fact that he is a fighter, that he questions assumptions and that he doesn't cotton well to intellectual bullying by self-satisfied people who think their success makes them right about everything."

Rozin, who has written seven plays—six in the past 10 years, said he deals with questions raised by what is going on in the world today. Those are the same types of plays produced at InterAct Theatre Company, which Rozin founded 22 years ago.

He said he hopes his writing has an effect beyond entertaining an audience for two hours.

It seems that hope may be realized in the case of "Two Jews." It turns out that the parents of a U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel based in Afghanistan saw the play in Florida and told their son about it. He e-mailed Rozin, asking how he could contact the men who inspired the play.

Rozin reports that Semantov, the last Jew in Kabul since Levi's death in 2005, met with the lieutenant colonel and had lunch at an Air Force base, and the Americans may try to help him.

Meanwhile, three to four more theaters are considering producing "Two Jews" in their next season, so the play may have a life beyond its world premieres.