'Model Apartment' Offers Unique Look at Holocaust

Boasting a strong cast of local actors, Donald Margulies' Obie Award-winning play, The Model Apartment, is in its final week of rehearsal at West Bloomfield’s .

According to director Lavinia Hart, the strength of the play lies in Margulies' writing, which has appeal to a broad audience.

"The playwright has done a brilliant piece of writing with this play. Donald Margulies writes from the heart and he reveals the human spirit so beautifully," said Hart, associate professor of Theatre and head of the MFA Acting Program for Wayne State University in Detroit. "Culturally as a Jewish playwright, he's wonderful, but people from all walks of life really love his work."

The Model Apartment was written by Margulies in 1988 and first presented by the famed Los Angeles Theatre Center. The play could be described as a haunting black comedy, and as with much of Margulies' work, it's a unique combination of outrageous humor and deeply emotional subject matter. He is known for creating strong characters who deal with a gut-wrenchingly familiar array of human problems, set within a simple domestic space.

The Model Apartment focuses on a pair of married Holocaust survivors: Lola survived the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp while Max hid in a forest until the end of the war. They've since lived and worked in Brooklyn, have now reached their retirement years and are seeking peace and contentment in the ubiquitous American dream, a care-free retirement condo in Florida.

By making the move from Brooklyn, Max and Lola had hoped to escape not only the nagging memories of their horrific Holocaust experiences, but also their outlandish, mentally disturbed daughter, Debby. However, the girl soon tracks them down, followed in short order by her new boyfriend, Neil, a homeless, slow-witted black teenager. As Debby follows them just as relentlessly as their shared pasts color their lives, the audience gets a distinctly disturbing feel for the underlying current of angst that runs throughout this small family.

The themes of living as a child of a Holocaust survivor should be well-received by West Bloomfield audiences, Hart said.

"It's important to realize that as a playwright, Margulies has done something that I believe no other playwright has done, and that is that he is focusing on the children of the survivors of the Holocaust and he is doing it in a way that is metaphoric yet also has flashes of brilliant realism as well," said Hart, whose most recent directing work at the JET includes 74 Georgia Avenue by Murray Schisgal and The Last Yankee by Arthur Miller.

"This is going to one of those plays where people walk out thinking and talking, and they'll be thinking and talking about the play for days to come ... I'm very pleased to be back at the JET again and directing a piece that I think is one of the most brilliantly written plays that I've worked on in my 35 year career."

A strong cast of local actors brings The Model Apartment to life. Tom Mahard plays the role of Max, Trudy Mason plays Lola, Laurel Hufano plays the outrageous Debby, Chris Jakob, her hapless boyfriend Neil and Christina Flynn plays the iconic Deborah.

"We have a very, very talented cast," Hart said. "I've worked with three of the five actors before and knew their work: Tom Mahard, Trudy Mason and Christina Flynn. Laurel Huffano and Chris Jakob are new actors to me, but I know Laurel's  reputation as an actor and I'm thrilled to be working with her in this show. Chris is our young one; he's just emerging on the professional theater scene and is a senior theater major at the University of Detroit Mercy.”

The set was designed by Sarah Tanner, properties by Diane Ulseth, sound by Jon Weaver, lights by Donald Robert Fox and costumes by Christa Koerner. Katie Orwig is this season’s technical director and Harold Jurkiewicz is the production’s stage manager, assisted by JET intern Kara Riley.

Preview performances are Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday at 5 p.m., with opening night on Saturday at 8:30 p.m. The show runs through June 5. Tickets range from $32-41 and are available by calling the box office at 248-788-2900 or at jettheatre.org.