There is no denying that today, many families could be considered “dysfunctional” on some level. Can we find, though, a less judgmental adjective for those families who struggle with their own identities, individually and collectively, and in their communication with each other? ”Disconnected?” “Disillusioned?” “Distanced?” Any of these would probably fit the Karpovsky family at varying points in time. Add another adjective to the above —”alienated”— as it applies to Julia Karpovsky, the young woman at the center of The Karpovsky Variations.
Aaron Kraar’s play, which just finished its world premiere at A.R.T./New York Theatres, weaves a poignant family saga, as seen primarily through both the child and adult perspectives of Julia (Rivka Borek). This intergenerational montage of Karpovsky relationships transpires over two decades, mostly in fleeting interactions at airports. The play alternates between the present (21st century) and past (20th century). The time frame for the present is the day after Julia’s father’s death. Past scenes mainly focus on encounters among the Karpovsky brothers, Julia, and Great Mama Rose (their grandmother/great-grandmother, respectively), when they gather to welcome or bid goodbye to each other.
Julia’s father is Lawrence (Ezra Barnes), the eldest Karpovsky, and an Asian-based writer. The other brothers are Harold (Chris Thorne), an optometrist, and Barry (J. Anthony Crane), the youngest, a social worker for a Jewish non-profit. Lawrence travels for his career, Barry goes on social welfare missions, and Harold flies a Cessna. They’re all in perpetual motion, visiting each other in airport lounges. Great Mama Rose (Barbara Broughton) wafts in and out, either during her lifetime, in one of Julia’s visions, or as a young girl in the Poland she fled. Michelle (Michelle Liu Coughlin), Lawrence’s Asian-American second wife, a nearly obsessive businesswoman, seems minimally engaged with the other Karpovskys but has a decisive voice in the conclusion.
The scenario of an impromptu welcome or a send-off at an airport should be familiar to most of us who must negotiate the comings and goings of loved ones. Nevertheless, the number of the Karpovskys’ pre-take-off and post-landing exchanges, albeit with gifts of kugel, may seem rather extreme. If, like Lawrence, one has no interest in kugels, or displays of affection, then sometimes family gatherings may seem burdensome at best.
Stop right here!! Lest anyone think that the family’s dynamics and interpersonal difficulties are the exclusive, or even the most significant focus of this play, there is a recurrent, musical thread that weaves itself in and out of the story. In many ways, this understated thread is the theme, as the clarinet is a symbolic as well as tangible presence in the story. The occasional melody lines, and even the riffs played by Julia and her father, represent lost opportunities and lost identity.
The Karpovskys’ lives mimic the musical variations that multiple generations of Karpovskys have heard, played, and tried to imitate. Years later, when Julia is trying to find her place in her family, her father’s heart, and the world, she attempts to resume, musically, where her grandfather and father have left off. We see this quest for the right melody begin when she is nine and enraptured by Lawrence’s clarinet, she laughs. This fascination continues through her early thirties, when she is bereft and floundering, after his sudden death.
The tune Julia seeks is the same haunting clarinet melody that has so mesmerized Great Mama Rose as a child. One night, in the shtetl, young Rose, dressed in her nightgown, leaves her home. She wanders down the street to find the source of the music until the notes fade away. Julia begs her great grandmother to recall the melody, so that she can replicate it. Early in the play, Julia laments: “If I could play you this song… you would love me….At least, I could live a life.”
The clarinet’s existence, as a Karpovsky family “artifact,” is crucial to several family members’ identities—particularly so for Julia. For life to move forward for her, the clarinet and the missing melody must be found and re-purposed.
Here’s the backstory: The Karpovskys view their deceased father, Great Mama Rose’s son, and an accomplished clarinetist, as a positive role model. This is, in part, because he has given up his music career to provide for his family and has moved them to the South to pursue business opportunities. His sons acknowledge this sacrifice, and reprimand Lawrence for not honoring their father’s request that he stay home for Passover. When one first observes the boys as teenagers in Menphis, it’s possible to wax nostalgic at their youthful zeal and affection for each other. Here, though, Kraar, as playwright, provides a window into personality fault lines that eventually drive wedges among the brothers.
Lawrence, like his father, is also a gifted clarinetist but lacks the self-confidence to forge a career in music. Instead, he opts to be a writer. He and his ex-wife, whom we never meet, have raised Julia abroad, and early in the play, she returns to the U.S, to attend high school and temporarily live with Barry’s family. One might assume that this change is for the sake of Julia’s education, but it’s clear that Lawrence’s work has been a way for him to opt out of being emotionally available to her. His ex-wife is off “finding herself” and equally unavailable to their daughter.
Although Lawrence grows ever more distant from Julia, she clings to him, and the clarinet, for direction and reassurance. The clarinet and its music remain a driving force in Julia’s life. They represent vehicles for her self-expression She flits from one instrument, one music genre, one college/conservatory, one apartment, and one relationship to another. Julia’s musical hopscotching reflects her inner restlessness. As the third generation of Polish/Jewish/American Karpovskys, she is already in her 30s, and at loose ends. She seeks familial and musical continuity, emotional bonding, and a sense of connection that will set everything right.
Lacking these, predictably, Julia winds up indigent, sleeping in an airport, until Uncle Barry runs into her there. Barry is a true mensch, who assumes a surrogate role in Julia’s life after Harold’s death in a plane crash and Lawrence’s untimely passing. After he intervenes, things start to take a turn for the better and Julia recovers Lawrence’s clarinet. Barry also tries to assume responsibility for giving Lawrence a Jewish burial, which (without revealing the punchline) is not a simple matter for him to accomplish.
This predicament is also something with which many people can unfortunately identify. Contention, even animosity among grieving family members is often high in these circumstances, and ironically, though we may disagree with her views, Julia seems even more emotionally settled, at this point, than Barry.
The Karpovsky Variations has strong Jewish thematic value and speaks to universal issues. Moreover, it encapsulates some of the emotional push-and-pull that family members feel when they are together, and when they long to be. Although this initial rendering of Kraar’s script by director Tasha Gordon-Solman would benefit from some additional “workshopping,” it’s a very powerful story. The performances by Rivka Borek and J. Anthony Crane are particularly noteworthy. Be sure to see it in its next incarnation.
Rachel Kovacs is an Adjunct Associate Professor of communication at CUNY, a PR professional, theater reviewer for offoffonline.com—and a Judaics teacher. She trained in performance at Brandeis and Manchester Universities, Sharon Playhouse, and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She can be reached at [email protected].
