Playwright Shimmy Braun’s bold title, Faygele, provides apt explanation of the young protagonist’s plight and motivation. Translated from Yiddish, ‘faygele’ is actually ‘little bird’, but it has become a contemptuous term of insult for a gay man, someone whose life chances can be compromised, especially in the Orthodox Jewish community (Brooklyn in this case) as Braun reveals from personal experience.
From the moment we meet Ari, vividly played by Ilan Galkoff, his life force is evident. Conversely, his parents are entirely the opposite, and it’s not just at his funeral that it’s evidenced. As the action flashes back through Ari’s life, we meet his father Dr Freed (Ben Caplan), a strictly religious, apparently uncompromisingly straight up and down father figure, not afraid to angrily chastise his son both verbally and physically. Ari’s mother, whose first name we never learn, is stooped with tension and misery, trapped under her husband’s thumb in a harrowing performance by Clara Francis. We learn that Ari is the eldest of her 12 children (Orthodox couples do not use contraception) and that she has more challenges in her marriage than offspring, for her husband has his own dark secrets. In spite of her pain, it is beautiful to witness the care she takes over her children, such as singing a Yiddish lullaby to Ari as he lies with his head in her lap.
