Tony Award-winning playwright Itamar Moses returns to The Public with the world premiere of THE ALLY. When Asaf (Josh Radnor) is asked to sign a social justice manifesto, he expects to be able to do so without hesitation. Instead, he becomes embroiled in an increasingly conflicted web of relationships that challenge his commitments as a liberal, a husband, an academic, an American, an atheist, and a Jew. With tensions at an all-time high, Asaf is forced to confront the age-old question: “If I am only for myself, what am I?” Directed by Drama Desk Award winner Lila Neugebauer, THE ALLY is a passionate, provocative, and unflinching new play about the vanishing line between the personal and the political.
It’s possible that the incompleteness is the point. It’s possible, too, that The Ally would still come across as unwieldy even if it had premiered one year ago, or five. As the more fraught second act continues, the everyone-gets-a-turn speechifying starts to crowd out the cathartic laughs that punctuate the serious business back in the first act. (When a few of those sharp, petty lines return toward the end, the relief of actual laughter, however quasi-inappropriate, is palpable.) The pre-existing relationship between Asaf and Nakia sometimes feels like a writer’s conceit more than something lived-in, with perfectly illustrative anecdotes related at key moments. Maybe that’s an inevitable byproduct of a play that dedicates so much time and energy to the act of debate. Even if the pin-drop intensity of The Ally dissipates quickly afterward, there’s something admirable about a play in which so many of its characters appear ready to make a didactic case against its very existence.
“The Ally” is much-needed, timely theater, but it isn’t completely up-to-date: Written before the October 7 2023 massacre of Israelis by Hamas and subsequent Israeli invasion of Gaza, it’s set in September, 2023. So much has intensified in the last few months that “The Ally” could almost feel like a period piece, a time when people who sharply disagreed could still talk to one another.
Videos