András Visny’s play Juliet is based on several years of his mother’s life in Romanian gulag where she was deported with her seven children after her preacher husband was convicted in the late 1950s of speaking out against Communist repression in Romania and sent to prison. The playwright was the youngest of her children, so he had a deep personal commitment to telling his mother’s story. In this moving regional premiere at Falcon Theatre in Newport, Kentucky, Samantha Joy Weil turns in a powerful one-woman performance of a beleaguered woman who argues with God about why she is being so sorely tested. We also learn about her life prior to the deportation and her happy marriage. Her tough story is an emotional rollercoaster.
Weil gives a strong physical rendition of this steadfast woman whose faith is sorely tested, while she holds fast against physical and moral challenges. Across 90 exhausting minutes, she recalls moments and events in her life before and during her exile, keeping her children alive with almost no food, fending off demands to give incriminating statements about her husband and more. It’s an important story, but it’s not easy to experience. Audiences will surely feel exhausted when it’s finished.
But it’s worth seeing between now and December 20. Here’s a link to my Talkin’ Broadway review: https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/regional/cincy/cincy577.html
PHOTO BY CLAUDIA HERSCHNER