Theatre in Review: How My Grandparents Fell in Love (New Jersey Repertory Company/59E59)

	Becca Suskauer, Harris Milgrim. Photo: Carol Rosegg

One thing you can say about the characters in How My Grandparents Fell in Love: They keep their sunny sides up. Europe in 1933 may be on the fast track to hell, what with the rise of Fascism and all, but these lovers only have songs in their hearts -- and not bitter, satirical Cabaret-style numbers, either: Chava, the heroine, sings, "I look out the window/And what do I see?/The city I live in/So bustling and free." Charlie, her future spouse, although she doesn't know it yet (see the title above), warbles, "I'm back in the old country/Back in the land I left behind/Back in this familiar place/Who knows what I will find?"

What will he find? Check that title again! Charlie is a shoe repairman, back in his homeland from America, looking to land a suitable wife. An arranged introduction has been a disaster, and, wandering the streets, he notices Chava leaning over the sales counter in a hat shop, her nose in a book. Could she be his Plan B? It doesn't look good: Chava is a budding philosopher, bent on attending university, and marriage is not on her agenda. After a little skirmishing -- she considers him "schlemiel" material - she warms up, and soon they're swanning around town (Rivne, in case you were wondering, a mid-size city now part of Ukraine), falling for each other in record time. Think of it as Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York) with a bissell schmaltz.

I have no idea if Cary Gitter's book, based on his one-act play, is rooted in family history, but Charlie and Chava are pure musical-theatre creations, a thoroughly forced pair of opposites. She is all serious, throwing around bits of Descartes and Spinoza at Charlie, who has no interest in, say, mind-body dualism. For one so smart, she is startlingly naïve, however. It is Charlie who warns that Warsaw University might not be thrilled about female Jewish students. (This is news to Chava, who seemingly hasn't gotten the memo about Poland's long tradition of antisemitism.) She calls him a "luftmensch, a man with his head in the clouds" but she should talk: Even after their first date is spoiled by news of the Reichstag fire, her socialist brother gets beaten up by nationalist thugs, and somebody hurls a rock, bearing a racist message, through her shop window, she asks the worried Charlie, "Did you come here to be an alarmist?" Honey, does he have to draw you a picture?

While Chava does have a number, "Why Do They Hate Us?", which nods toward ugly political realities, she and Charlie mostly go on their merry way. He lives contentedly in Hoboken, cueing a bumper crop of Jersey jokes. (There's even a song: "Oh, Hoboken/When I found it, I was awoken/Sprinkled with grit and grace/It's a wonderful place.") Chava touts her philosophers' hall of fame ("Hegel and Schopenhauer/Up in their ivory tower/Nietzsche and Marx/Both send off sparks/Also leave room for/Leibniz and Hume"). Making like a refugee from operetta-land, Chava, adopting a come-hither manner, sings "Here we stand/By a single light/Would you like to/Kiss me goodnight." (The lyrics are by Gitter and the composer Neil Berg.) Like Nellie Forbush, How My Grandparents Fell in Love is bromidic and bright on a moon-happy night, pointedly determined to smooth over any unpleasantness.

Just when it looks like the lovers are kaput, she shows up at the train station, ready to start over in a strange country with a man she has known for three days. What about the mother and siblings she has been supporting? "I explained it all to them last night," she says. That must have been some conversation. Even in the show's epilogue, when we learn the dire fate of Chava's loved ones, the show is hellbent on waving away any shandas in favor of an uplifting finale.

Harris Milgrim and Becca Suskauer knock themselves out as Charlie and Chava, although given the book's synthetic complications and Suzanne Barabas' sometimes-awkward direction, they often seem to be performing without a net. Milgrim has an impressive voice and moves well; if Suskauer strains to seem lighthearted, it may be due to circumstances under her control. The overall production, including Jessica Parks' scenery, Patricia Doherty's costumes, Jill Nagle's lighting, and Nick Simone's sound design, is fairly basic. (Most enjoyable is Simone's preshow playlist, which includes "Mood Indigo," "Stardust," "Just a Gigolo," and "Minnie the Moocher.")

Clearly, everyone involved in How My Grandparents Fell in Love wants to create a nostalgic, romantic musical, and the rather older audience at 59E59 ate it up on the night I attended. But you may not be satisfied with its evasive approach to thorny historical details. In many ways, the real story of this pair probably doesn't get interesting until Charlie and Chava land in Hoboken, which, one imagines, is where trouble sets in. But that's a musical for another day. --David Barbour