What are the little moments and gigantic moments that measure a life? I've often read that your two most important dates are the day you are born and the day you realize why. I’ve also been told it’s the dash that defines you and your life between the date of your birth until the day of your death - and everything you did in between, your personal dash. For playwright Lisa Kron, she has s personal, poignant, painful and perceptive play to tell what captures the intense moments that shaped her own father’s life and the Hartford Stage is revealing them with powerful painted images in “2.5 Minute Ride” until Sunday, June 23. Don’t miss it!
Lisa Kron focuses on three major events that shaped her father’s life beginning in 1937 when at 15, his parents put him on the Kindertransport train out of Germany to save his life and so many other Jewish children’s lives before and during World War II. He never saw his parents again. Using a video and slide show of colored images, Lena Kaminsky’s Lisa opens her world to the audience with candor and honesty, simplicity and sensitivity. She is truly magical as she takes us on the family’s annual trips to Cedar Point Amusement Park, in Sandusky, Ohio, known as the roller coaster capitol of the world for its 68 amazing roller coasters and her father’s love of riding them. Like the amusement ride, the story goes up, up and away with loops and twists, curves and surprises. There are unexpected revelations from moment to moment, filled with sparks of wonderful humor and flashes of tragedy along the way.
With amazing skill, she hopscotches to a trip she took to bring her dad back to his homeland of Germany and a painful visit to Auschwitz, the death camp where his family perished so many years before. This is a real story of a real family, of the loves and losses in a parent and child relationship, one that speeds along like that amusement park ride, told by a queer Jewish woman and her personal journey to preserve and understand his history and his world and how the two interconnect.
The healing power of storytelling continues with her brother David's enchanting Orthodox wedding to a woman, Soshie, he met online and how her mother suddenly bought a new dress and put on makeup for the first time to attend. With her partner Peggy and her videographer friend Mary, Lisa takes us on a voyage of discovery that is memorable, under the inspired direction of Zoe Golub-Sass, on a set designed by Judy Gailen that resembles Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall.
For tickets ($20-100), call the Hartford Stage, 50 Church Street, Hartford at 860-527-5151 or online at hartfordstage.org. Performances are Tuesday to Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.
Watch the past and present merge right before your eyes as Lisa Kron, with the wonderful assistance of Lena Kaminsky, take you on a personal journey of discovery that clearly explains the dash in her father’s life.
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