Review: THE CHAMELEON at Theater J

Superheroes are larger than life, and so is the family at the heart of Jenny Rachel Weiner’s new play, The Chameleon. This whirlwind 90-minute world premiere at Theatre J, directed by Ellie Heyman, is set around the dinner table of a Jewish family at Christmas as they enjoy boxes of – you guessed it – Chinese takeout. The story revolves around a series of wrenching decisions for actor Riz, as she’s poised to start filming her breakout role at age 39 in a new superhero franchise called The Chameleon. Over the course of the evening, fresh threats rear their heads quicker than villains in a Marvel movie, and news travels at the speed of tweets. Guests at the dinner table include Riz’s husband Joaquin, with whom she’s holding onto precarious news, her agent Philip, who is a conduit for another avalanche of news, her parents, her Holocaust survivor Bubbe, and her sister and partner Maya, who have big news of their own.

There is a lot of telling rather than showing during the play’s exposition, and a great deal of explicit suspense-building and larger-than-life acting and staging choices. As the play blends past and present and infuses dreams with reality and reality with lyrical interludes, the audience needs to overcome disorientation, suspend disbelief, and just go along for the ride. (On opening night at Theatre J, an extremely warm and receptive audience seemed to do just that.) At first it seemed as though the audience stand-in characters might be the newer members of the family, Joaquin and Maya, observing the familial chaos and reacting as outsiders. But as the play continued, it seemed much more like a satire unfolding from the perspective of Riz. 

The Chameleon is framed as a story with three chapters, with titles announced portentously by Bubbe. In the play, Bubbe (in a magnetic performance by Nancy Robinette) speaks very little English since she has forgotten most of it in her old age. But the boundaries of fantasy and reality are porous in Riz’s world, as dream sequences allow Bubbe’s shaky steps to give way to dancing and her confusion to give way to comic book-styled spiritual guidance. Indeed, the surreal pace, volatile emotional tenor, and improbable plot twists of The Chameleon felt most satisfying when viewed as a drama inside Riz’s mind. In this way, it can transcend the obligations of realism, and we can view the characters as Riz’s vision of her family, or a kind of therapy session that we can watch from the inside. We learn that Bubbe quite literally disguised herself as a Nazi to survive: The Chameleon asks, what does it look like to heal that intergenerational trauma in today’s context when many Jewish people simultaneously wield great privilege and endure deep prejudice and hate? 

Dina Thomas shows tremendous range as Riz, showcasing at different times her remarkable vulnerability, anger, ambivalence, and deep conviction. Sarah Corey and Eric Hissom were a hilarious and formidable pair as Riz’s parents, with Corey in particular serving up a pitch-perfect delivery of sharp matriarchal quips. Riz’s sister Stephanie was played with a riveting blend of outrage, embarrassment, and compassion by Emma Wallach. Stephanie’s partner Maya was portrayed with emotional agility and intensity by Arielle Moore, and Riz’s husband Joaquin was played by Ryan Sellers, whose anxious Manischewitz consumption and general antics were a respite from the show’s weightier moments.

The Chameleon packs a lot into 90 minutes, but the play also leaves crucial territory uncharted. It probes intricate tensions around American Jewish identity and the pressures of assimilation, and yet it avoids digging into the thorniest questions about competing obligations around safety and justice. And while the play depicts how the effects of trauma make the past painfully present, we spend almost all of the play rooted in Riz’s current circumstances as she strives to forge her own path to being a real-life superhero. As a result, many crucial pieces of context and stories of key characters in the play are ultimately unexplored (Maya and Stephanie’s story in particular feels cut short). Still, this tension, and even the difficulty itself of finding the right words and framing, are at the heart of The Chameleon – and it’s gripping to see these flawed, aspiring superheroes engage in striving to get it right.

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