With pin-sharp timing, just days after Yom Kippur and following the Middle East peace summit, Replay Productions has brought the history of the Jewish diaspora off the schools circuit and into the public arena.
Rebecca Bartlett's admirably simple new play is illuminated by her happy childhood memories of growing up in north Belfast, in the heart of the city's now-dwindling Jewish community. Director Janice Jarvis has responded sensitively to the preservation of those memories, with a finely balanced ensemble piece, which her cast of six not so much acts, as feels.
The central characters are Miriam Kozetski (Nuala Reilly) and her son Yitzchak (Drew Thompson), who have survived the brutality and persecution of the May Laws raging in their Lithuanian homeland. After walking to the port of Riga, they board a boat bound for a strange, far-off city called Belfast, arriving on a damp, misty morning in 1896 to build a brave new life for themselves.
We follow Miriam and Yitzchak as they get to know their working-class Catholic and Protestant neighbours, gradually coming to terms with their black Belfast humour and the complexity and sectarianism of this place they now call home.
But while Miriam, fiercely guards her Lithuanian-Jewish identity, its laws and customs, Yitzchak longs to become an Irish-Jew, at home and at ease with his peers. When it comes to his own children, the preservation of that identity takes another turn, both restricting and defining.
Debra Salem's plaintive music, beautifully played by violinist Robin Kuller, Roger Nicholson's mellow lighting and Stuart Marshall's versatile set draw the audience into the rich history of Belfast lives, ancient and modern.
At the Old Museum until Saturday, then moves to The Playhouse, Derry, on November 8th, Lurgan Town Hall on November 28th and The Market Place Theatre in Armagh on November 30th and December 1st.