Prayer for the French Republic Broadway Reviews

That this Manhattan Theater Club production, directed by David Cromer, remains mostly riveting is the result of the richness of Harmon’s novelistic detail — and the exceptional skill of the principal actors in realizing it.

That’s not to say that “Prayer for the French Republic” should have been about something other than the story it tells. But it doesn’t tell it in a compelling or nuanced manner — despite Harmon having set himself up to succeed with a flashback story that could, but does not, provide real context and present-day interlocutors who could, but do not, push the Benhamous beyond platitudes. The debates the Benhamous are having are ones that are happening in our own republic — at dinner tables and in group chats, on Instagram and at protests. And in that way the play is right on time. But for all the capaciousness of the show’s story, what it’s ultimately trying to do is narrow: To explain a choice a group of characters make by proving that those opposed to it just aren’t being serious. It’s a case, it turns out, that takes three hours to conclusively prove.

As a three-hour-and-two-intermission multigenerational family epic that’s Serious But Also Funny — and full of prolonged opportunities for actors to shout — it’s essentially purpose-built to win awards, and it has. Off Broadway, it nabbed Outstanding Play and Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play from the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle, respectively. It has the shape of something profound and easily laudable, but inside that outline, though it doesn’t shy away from gnarly questions, it often feels showy in its engagement with them. Like that guy who corners you at the grad-school mixer, Prayer for the French Republic is smart and it has a heart in there, but its primary interest is in its own demonstrations of rhetoric.

Over the past year, there have been a number of plays and musicals dealing with anti-Semitism, some more powerfully than others. Harmon (whose prior works include the comedies “Bad Jews,” “Significant Other” and “Admissions”) takes the genre to the next level by not just depicting anti-Semitism or warning against it but in earnestly trying to wrestle with how to respond to it, including the limits of intellectually analyzing it, and whether to fight it or flee for safety.

There is perceptiveness and humor in Prayer for the French Republic, and Cromer’s direction does its best to keep things honest. But as Harmon weighs out the issues, you can sense his thumb on the scale; by the denouement, it feels more like his whole hand, pressing for amens.

With the inestimable assistance of Kata’s then-and-now set, Amith Chandrashaker’s lighting design, Daniel Kluger’s music and sound design and Sarah Laux’s spot-on costumes – to say nothing of Cromer’s direction, which easily matches his Tony-winning work on The Band’s Visit, Edwards and his castmates bring two distinct, if not always so dissimilar, eras to life, and they tell a sweeping story while conveying genuine intimacy. Prayer for the French Republic asks big questions – of history, of family, of identity – and, all but miraculously, answers their call.

We’re all here just for a moment, of course, stuck in the middle of events mostly out of control. Whatever your identity, rarely in a Broadway theater will you have so powerfully felt your own vulnerability.

Off Broadway, Patrick was played by the canny and empathetic actor Richard Topol. Currently, the part belongs to Anthony Edwards (of TV’s E.R.), who has a wry, befuddled quality that works in group scenes, but leaves him unfocused in monologues directed to the audience. Still, if Prayer’s frame has grown wobbly, the central story remains vibrant and confidently driven by three outstanding women from the original cast: the fierce-willed Aidem; Francis Benhamou as Marcelle’s brilliant but bipolar daughter, Elodie; and Molly Ranson as college-age Molly, an American cousin many times removed who’s spending a gap year France—while getting drawn into Benhamou drama.

Like any play transferring to Broadway from an Off Broadway success, this “Prayer” is a counterproposal to its earlier, smaller, and more intimate iteration. In some practical ways—for instance, the recasting of Patrick with Edwards, whose discomfort with his narrator duties hobbles the play from the start—the competition is weighted toward the Off Broadway version. That production, though, now feels like a relic from another time, before the recent Hamas attacks and the war in Gaza. The play’s ideas about the utility of fear sound particularly strange in this changed air. The production itself seems more tentative than it was before: Harmon has removed from the script a final recounting of several hate crimes that will occur after 2016, perhaps so that the audience will not think about other, more recent events. The room in 2022 where I first saw “Prayer” is lost now. The play was built for it, and sometimes you can’t go home.

“Prayer for the French Republic” addresses, with nuance, detail and understated passion, the tensions and the connections between history and current events. While it tells of a particular family, it illuminates the troubles of all people caught up in the turbulent tides of history—as everyone in a sense is—even if some face graver danger than others.

The performances by the ensemble, both veterans and newcomers, are exemplary, with Aidem perhaps the standout as the mother desperately trying to hold everything together in the face of eternal forces. Only Edwards seems a bit out of place, and not only because of his celebrity relative to the rest of the cast. But his performance may sharpen as the run goes on.

The production is directed with great heart and welcome humor by David Cromer. It makes for powerful theater that’s as entertaining as it is enlightening. And it’s all terrifically enhanced by a sublime ensemble performing with absolute authenticity.

Yet while Harmon does nod towards a more universal meaning to “never again,” when Patrick notes at the play’s conclusion that he is “rooting for all the wanderers of the world,” Prayer does not ultimately have room to carry the horrors in Gaza alongside more specifically Jewish concerns. You might argue that’s not what this play is about — but how can we leave it outside? It is hard not to feel discomfort in abstractly pondering “Could it happen here?” when we see, right now, what is happening there. The heart of Prayer lies in, above all else, the search for safety, for peace, and for comfort. Prayer bitterly reminds us that all of this has happened before, and most likely will again. In that sense, its timing remains sadly perfect.

Harmon is the talented playwright of Significant Other, about the frailty of friendship; Admissions, about race and privilege; and Bad Jews, about family legacies. He digs deeper than ever in Prayer for the French Republic and strikes pure gold. It’s a plus-size play about big social issues that impresses in large structural ways as well as small moments.

With so many characters and so many themes, the work could feel overwhelming. But Cromer, as he has done so often, ensures the show flows smoothly and feels much shorter than its running time. However, neither the play, which can feel overwritten at times, nor the production is perfect. For example, Takeshi Kata’s set design is visually too spare for such a long show while Sarah Laux’s costumes feel uninspired. Still, we should be profoundly grateful that a work of such ambition, scope and importance has made it to the stage, not once but twice. The many questions the play poses, not just Marcelle’s, are like most prayers: necessary but not easily answered.