If wholesome is your bag, then playwright Mark Harelik's rag-to-riches dramography of his grandfather, a Jewish immigrant who came to America in hopes of finding a better life and lived happily ever after, provides agreeably cheerful and lightweight drama. Mind you, there isn't much in the way of conflict, anger, or romance -- unless you count the hero's life-altering decision to stop selling bananas and go into dry goods.
In 1909, Haskell Harelik (Doug Kaback) flees the Russian pogroms and moves to America, arriving not at Ellis Island but at Galveston, Texas, where the saying "Bring me your tired, your poor" yields to "Git along little doggie!" Haskell soon settles in a picturesque town, where he sells bananas from a little cart.
Town banker Milton (Geoffrey Pomeroy) and his good Christian wife, Ima (MarLee Candell), take pity on Haskell when he has a fainting fit on their front porch, and they let him move into their house. They then help him set himself up with a little grocery store. Haskell sends for his lovely wife, Leah (Jessica Gershen), and their business prospers, as does their friendship with Milton and Ima. The years pass: There's a war or two, and Leah gives birth to three kids, one of whose kids turns out to write this play -- you should be as dutiful to your grandparents.
The Yiddish word that best describes Harelik's play is schmaltz, for the work is unabashedly sentimental to the point of being downright corny. Director Mark Schwarz's journeyman staging hits all the marks with a straightforward production that's caparisoned with moments of extreme clumsiness, such as when loud soupy klezmer-y music is awkwardly piped in to provide a soundtrack to those memories of the old country.
Some of the play's supporting performances, including Candell's nicely practical salt-of-the-earth small-town housewife and Gershen as the shy Jewish bride who blossoms under the Texas sun, possess a genial Our Town believability. However, Kaback's character is never especially convincing as a young man, and his more mature characterization drops steeply and consistently into stock Yiddish stereotype. This is a problem that's mainly due to the play's one-dimensional vision of the central character, but there's little sense of edge to Haskell's personality, and Kaback does little to find any depth in the corners.
Presented by and at the Promenade Playhouse,
1404-8 Third St. Promenade, Santa Monica.
Jan. 17–Mar. 1. Fri.–Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 p.m. (Dark Sun., 3 p.m. Feb. 22.) (323) 960-4418 or Plays 411.