Mona Golabek has adapted The Pianist of Willesden Lane from her book The Children of Willesden Lane, written with Lee Cohen and performs it alone on stage. Golabek’s presence as she recalls the life of her mother, Lisa Jura, is warm, inviting, and easy-going.
Gobalek gives us a firsthand account of Jura from her happy childhood in pre-war Vienna, to being the only one of her sisters to be sent to London through Kindertransport where she spent her adolescence in a group home on Willesden Lane. It is a story of how she, and her love of the piano, carried her through her life as a Jewish Refugee against the ravaging backdrop of World War II, and the many people who shaped her life along the way.
She embodies each person in her mother’s world just enough to give us some flavor of them, touching lightly on each one, as if letting that chord resonate and sustain through the rest of the scene. She deftly slips into bursts of deeply felt emotion, opening her voice as a conduit for the trauma and suffering passed down through her family, but for the most part tells most of the story matter-of-factly, and with the occasional cheeky smile. It’s utterly charming. However, for a show that runs 90 minutes long, the similarity of tone from movement to movement, scene to scene, began to feel repetitive.
The true star of this play, however, is the music. Golabek is a masterful pianist, and the true pathos of this story comes from how the music interacts with Lisa Jura and with the world. I have never before cried hearing Debussy’s Clair de Lune or Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, but here the piano gently coaxed those tears from me. Music has the power to transcend time, and therefore the innate power to heal us, and sitting in the Family Theatre, it was as if Lisa Jura herself was soothing me, telling me that it would all be okay. While our times are not as dark as those 14-year old Lisa faced, the parallels are striking, especially to someone like myself: a queer person of color and a classically trained musician.
This is not to say that the struggles are congruent, but rather, through the music, the resonance was multiplied a hundredfold. It is exceedingly rare for me to connect with a piece of art in this way. The slightest pause in her cadence before she alighted upon the final chords of each excerpt showed Golabek’s deep thoughtfulness and reverence towards the music. The manner in which she played showed a deep dialogue with each piece; as if she knew each of these composers intimately well. The gentle recapitulation in script and in score of Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto serves to drive home the emotional arc of the entire play. Because this music has remained unchanged from when it debuted to when Lisa Jura played it, to when Mona Golabek played it before us, we feel the depth of connection from mother to daughter to us. We hear the music as Lisa Jura played it; Golabek, the evening’s conduit. It is stunning.
Felder’s direction and use of the stage, designed by both him and Trevor Hay, seems a bit choppy most of the time. Golabek rarely flows from space to space, but, like movements of a sonata, there is definitive pause and quick readjustment before the next scene. While this is helpful for a sonata, which only has three movements, it is not as helpful for a show that spans so much time and space, and for a script that so easily moves along the passage of troubled times. It becomes predictable, and in itself someone one note.
Projections from Andrew Wilder and Greg Sowizdrzal come in the form of four large frames in the back that serve as screens. Many times they reveal a silent film like representation of the world at the time; actual footage from the years in Vienna and Germany during the rise of the Nazis and the subsequent fallout. Footage from World War II, all underscored by Golabek on the piano. While a nice idea, it seems they only strike home twice. Once during Debussy’s Clair de Lune, where we see photos of the Jura family in the frames, and again at the end of the play. Other than that, while they serve to give a visual glimpse into Lisa Jura’s world, they seemed rather unnecessary, complicating Golabek’s simple storytelling style and drawing focus from her magnificent piano playing.
Despite the inherent sadness in the music, The Pianist of Willesden Lane is an upbeat story, filled with colourful characters, with one of the best uses of classical music in a play seen to date. It is a piece of history, both deeply personal and gently universal, presented in a gentle, tender fashion. Bring tissues.
The Pianist of Willesden Lane adapted for the stage by Hershey Felder from The Children of Willesden Lane by Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen. Direction by Hershey Felder. Featuring Mona Golabek. Production: Production Management: Erik Carstensen. Scenic Design: Hershey Felder and Trevor Hay. Costume Design: Jaclyn Maduff. Lighting Design: Jason Bieber. Sound Design: Erik Carstensen. Projection Design: Andrew Wilder and Greg Sowizdrzal. Video Director: Laurence Siefert. Dramaturg: Cynthia Caywood, PhD. Associate Direction: Trevor Hay. Production Stage Manager: Daniel Debner . Produced by Theater J . Reviewed by Jon Jon Johnson.
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