Review: THE STEEL MAN Forges Forth at Penguin Rep Theatre.

One of the attributes of The Steel Man that contributes to its visceral impact on the audience is spare, blunt dialogue that tells a story rooted in the dark recesses of prolonged human suffering and how that mental anguish can reverberate through decades and generations. The play’s elegant structure brings the muscular narrative about a Holocaust survivor into sharper relief.

The illuminating drama by Cary Gitter, playwright-in-residence at Penguin Rep Theatre in Stony Point (N.Y.), is having its world premiere through Sept. 29. Performed with no intermission, it runs under 90 minutes.

Set in 1983 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, The Steel Man focuses on the volatile relationship between 70-year-old Hungarian Jewish immigrant Leo Gellert (Sam Guncler) and his 29-year-old son Jake (Leighton Samuels).  

Leo, whose still is mourning the death of his wife from a year ago, has been living (and dreaming) with demons since escaping Nazi Germany. 

As the second-generation progeny of a Holocaust survivor, Jake has been trying to escape his father’s demons, which have been visited on the son at unpredictable moments for the entirety of Jake’s life. That is the well-documented dilemma of second-generation Holocaust survivors, who are fated to strike a fragile balance between having “rachmones” (compassion) for the parent and at the same time not allowing the bitterness and vindictiveness of said parent to cast an inherited pall over their own lives.

As Jake, who has been intermittently bullied by Leo for as long as he can remember, Leighton Samuels does fine and affecting work on stage, evincing the struggle at hand trying to square that circle. That formidable task hasn’t worked out well for Jake, who never has been able to stand up to his fire-breathing father’s belittling outbursts. When he is mocked by Leo as “weak,” Jake’s touche rejoinder is “I’m not weak. I’m broken.”

That brokenness infects not only Jake, but his paramour Christine (“Chris”), who is given a strong reading by Amanda Kristin Nichols, who pushes back vociferously on Leo’s insults (dismissing her as a “shiksa,” a slur meaning female gentile) in a way Jake never has been able to muster. Jake keeps putting off telling Leo that he and Chris have plans to leave Pittsburgh to live in New York City, where Jake has been accepted on a full scholarship to prestigious performing arts school Juilliard for acting, and Chris has landed a journalist’s gig with seminal alternative newsweekly The Village Voice.  

As Chris, Amanda Kristin Nichols projects a confidence and rationality that builds up a reserve of good will with us, so her actions put us in her corner. She clearly is her own person, whose perseverance puts in his place even the otherwise intrepid and acerbic Leo.  

Leighton Samuels’s Jake is ingratiating and empathetic, and at times appropriately frustrating in his avoidance issues. He tries to maintain good relations with Leo and Chris and between Leo and Chris, who each give him all he can handle.  (And, not for nothing, the actor does a quite credible impersonation of groundbreaking satirist Lenny Bruce, whom Jake has been cast as in the eponymous biographical play.)

At the center of the orbit of mashed-up relationships is the consummate performance of Sam Guncler. He prowls the stage as a feral Leo with gritty gravitas. He is the “steel man” not just because he lives in Pittsburgh, but also because he has defied death several times, including twice surviving fires, one time while working in a steel mill, so it’s more than a figure of speech to say the steel-spined Leo has been to hell and back.

In a high-stakes subplot, Leo is determined to avenge the death of his family members, who were sent to the death camp Auschwitz after being turned in to the Nazis by a village policeman named Zoltan Bako, who also was a family friend. Still seething 40 years later over the devastating betrayal, Leo has acquired a gun, hired a detective to discover where Bako lives (Miami), and sets out to exact retribution.

Where that setup may come off as melodramatic in other instances, in the hands of Director Joe Brancato, known for fine tuning productions with an exacting eye, Mr. Guncler’s ultra-high-strung swagger makes Leo’s homicidal intentions all too believable. Yet, he also reaches us in the tender moments, few as they may be.

If it seems the role of Leo fits the actor like a glove, in addition to his obvious skill, there’s another good reason: The Steel Man is based on his own father, so the character of Jake embodies Sam Guncler’s real life experience.

Among the moments in Leo and Jake’s relationship that ebb and flow, for better or worse, Jake deep down aches for his father and the embattled life he has been dealt – and has outwitted time and again.

In the end, as The Steel Man reaches an emotionally pitched denouement, it is poetic justice that Jake comes up with an ingenious way to give his father back some of the most cherished memories of Leo’s blessed life in Hungary, where once appeared as himself in a movie that was filmed on location at his farm.

One would like to think that Jake’s heartfelt act of filial love and rachmones helped forge a bond between the Holocaust survivor and the second-generation survivor that would carry both through to more cherished moments ahead.

Costumes for The Steel Man are by Christian Fleming, Lights by Ed McCarthy,  Original Music and Sound Design by Max Silverman. Projections by Brian Pacelli, Props by Dana Weintraub. Production Stage Manager is Michael Palmer.

Then there is the matter of the captivating set design, which is a departure for Penguin Rep. I’m not referring to the home furnishings, in the throwback style of mid-1980s couches, hutches and so on, or the intriguing depth of perspective as we look not only into the living room but beyond, to the upstage foyer and front door.

Penguin’s sets always are Broadway-worthy, as befits an Equity house (casting members of the professional union Actors Equity Association (AEA). For The Steel Man, the new twist is the elevated stage that creates the illusion we are peering into a shoebox diorama as the characters go about their business. That novel design choice plants in our mind’s eye the perimeter of a definable “fourth wall” that has been peeled away to afford the audience a unique vantage point.

Asked about the unusual proscenium adjustment, Penguin Artistic Director Joe Brancato said, "The visual aspect of this production was very important to me. With my wonderful scenic designers Christopher and Justin Swader, I wanted to convey a claustrophobic experience for this second-generation person [Jake]. So we brought to life this contained box and cut one side of it off for a voyeuristic view of what went on within that house."

Photo Credit: Brian Pacelli

[This is a gentle note to producers of local theater that I am attaching to my reviews: In addition to featuring playwrights and directors in the marketing materials promoting your productions, please remember to also promote cast members by listing the actors’ names in the same materials. Doing so can help fill seats by those who recognize a familiar name and buy a ticket to see and support that person.]

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