REMEMBER THIS TRICK Comes to Target Margin Theater in February

The Obie award-winning Target Margin Theater will present the world premiere of Remember This Trick, an exploration of American antisemitism, stories of Jewish survival, troubling conspiracy theories, and the trickster spirit that will save us all. Created by Founding Artistic Director David Herskovits alongside a cohort of artists, Remember This Trick runs February 17 – March 17, 2024, with an opening set for Wednesday, February 28, 2024, at Target Margin Theater’s The Doxsee (232 52nd St, Brooklyn). Tickets are now on sale at www.targetmargin.org.
 

Remember This Trick weaves together stories of Jewish survival amidst the fog of antisemitic conspiracy thinking that has descended on our time. From the beginning, humanity has needed stories to help us understand our world, especially the horrors. Today the cloud of conspiracy theories has never been thicker and darker. Remember This Trick pierces the fog of all these stories – true, imagined, and fake. In a sense, Remember This Trick is no more or less than an artistically adventurous Purimshpil –the traditional Jewish retelling of the story of Esther. At the time of Purim, we remember how when forces gathered to exterminate the Jews, a savvy and courageous woman saved them.

“Remember This Trick is an expression of personal history – one that I hope is meaningful to everyone,” says Herskovits. “My father escaped Slovakia in 1940 with his mother and grandmother when he was ten. No one else in the family got out. His story is one of thousands of inspiring stories of Jewish survival and strength in adversity. With Remember This Trick, I want to add my own voice to that literature, without sentimentality and with the richest complexity I can bring to bear.”

The cast for Remember This Trick features Danny Bryck, Zoë Geltman, Yehuda L. Hyman, Sarah Suzuki, and Mari Vial-Golden.

The creative team includes lighting and scenic designer Barbara Samuels and costume designer Beth Goldenberg with sound design by Herskovits. Jesse Freedman serves as sound demon stage manager Tala Musterman, assistant stage manager Allison Hohman, production manager Jonathan Cottle, and assistant director Leo Egger.

The source material for Remember This Trick celebrates the resilience and joy of human experience in the face of hate and includes the Book of Esther and other Purim stories; Barbara Meyerhoff’s classic anthropological studies of aging American Jews, Number Our Days; collected Jewish jokes; the story of Werner Reich, Auschwitz-survivor and amateur magician; The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Henry Ford’s The International Jew; American white-supremacist websites, statements and postings of Tucker Carlson, and texts of replacement theory, and conspiracy theories like Q-Anon, Covid-hoaxers, 9-11 truthers, and space-laser believers.

Herskovits began work on Remember This Trick in 2022. Although the play deals with antisemitism, it is centered on the situation in America. Today, we must acknowledge the context of events in Israel/Palestine, the suffering and horror of that conflict. Despite the overlap of some subject material, Remember This Trick intentionally does not attempt to address the current and historical situation in the state of Israel. That is a tragedy that commands its own focus and deep conversation in the world and in the arts.

Twenty-four performances of Remember This Trick will take place February 17 – March 17, 2024, at Target Margin Theater’s The Doxsee, located at 232 52nd Street in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. Critics are welcome as of Thursday, February 22, for an opening on Wednesday, February 28. Performances take place Wednesdays – Saturdays at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 4pm with additional performances on Monday February 19 and 26 at 7:30pm. Tickets, which start at $25, can be purchased at www.targetmargin.org. Standard ticketing fees apply. The anticipated running time is 70 minutes.

Please visit www.targetmargin.org for more information.

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