The Hatmaker's Wife" at Jewish Repertory Theatre
- Anthony Chase
- May 2
- 7 min read
Updated: May 3
A whimsical blend of magical realism and Jewish folklore
By Anthony Chase
In Lauren Yee's The Hatmaker's Wife, now playing at Jewish Repertory Theatre under Steve Vaughan's direction, the walls literally talk -- but not to everyone. This conceit establishes the production's unique theatrical world from the outset, a place where whimsical folkloric comedy blends with elements of Jewish storytelling traditions. Although playwright Lauren Yee is not Jewish -- she is a Chinese American writer -- her script draws inventively and affectionately on Jewish folklore and theatrical tradition.
As the lights come up, we meet Hechtman the hatmaker, played by Jack Hunter. He is luxuriating in the maroon fedora he places on his head. His wife, played by Pamela Rose Mangus, enters, scoffs, and exits. We fade to black.
In the next scene, a young couple is moving into a new apartment. Gabe (David Wysocki) is carrying a heavy box of books. His sense of exhaustion is exaggerated and not quite real. This acting style turns out to be a deliberate choice that invites us into a fanciful, presentational world of folklore, where the past will magically blend with the present.
Whereas Gabe is lugging books that weigh like a “ton of Bricks,” his girlfriend, with the unusual name, “Voice,” (Renee Hawthorne) carries a lightweight box of pillows. She is unconcerned by Gabe’s exhaustion, and wants him to pick up his heavy load again so she can capture the moment on her video camera. This contrast will prove prophetic and will be navigated by a literal wall.
Yes, a wall. In the tradition of Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night's Dream or the wall built by the fathers in The Fantasticks, the wall of this apartment will begin to broker relationships. It speaks, but only to Voice. The wall also begins to dispense pages that tell the story of Hechtman the hatmaker and his nameless wife, which Voice reads obsessively, while hiding them from Gabe. Through this intervention, the two parallel plots – one about the older couple; and the other about the younger couple – will eventually converge. (I know this resembles the plot of Anna Ziegler's The Wanderers, about two seemingly unrelated couples whose stories eventually converge, done at JRT earlier this season, but it's a completely different play!)
Hunter brings his special blend of adorable irascibility to the role of the self-absorbed hatmaker. He's retired to an easy chair and expects his wife -- a woman whose name he can't recall -- to wait on him, hand and foot. The man is totally narcissistic and entirely and frustratingly un-self-aware, a fact that his devoted friend, Meckel (Peter Palmisano), tries to point out with as much diplomacy as possible.
Palmisano's Meckel serves as the perfect foil to Hunter's Hechtman. Where Hechtman is oblivious and self-centered, Meckel is attentive and compassionate. Palmisano infuses his character with a gentle wisdom that makes the friendship between these opposing personalities believable.
Pamela Rose Mangus brings tired resignation and steely resiliency to the role of Hechtman’s Wife. Her performance anchors the play’s emotional core. As the nameless wife, Mangus deftly balances humor and heartbreak, embodying a woman whose identity has been worn down by years of neglect but who still radiates an inner strength. She communicates volumes with a glance or a sigh, and her understated delivery makes the character’s journey -- from invisibility to recognition -- deeply affecting.
Moments that resonate with particular power include her quiet train scene, where the Wife, alone with her husband’s hat, confides a lifetime of longing and disappointment, revealing both her vulnerability and her resilience. Or the scene in the hatmaker’s shop when the Wife, denied so much in life, quietly claims her own agency with understated resolve: “Now I ask myself. And me? I say okay!” Her performance culminates in a moment of quiet, transformative catharsis, as her character finally claims her own space and recognition. In her stillness, you feel the weight of years, and the emotional arc of the play comes rushing home.
The script offers these performers a linguistic playground, with dialogue that begs to be savored rather than merely spoken. The actors respond by luxuriating in every consonant and elongated vowel, turning what might be simple exchanges into rich character studies. They savor the short, clipped exchanges with their distinctive syntax: "Is true!" "Nooo!" "Noooo!" "Is true!" -- finding patterns as they play with repetition, emphasis, and emotional escalation through language.
The performances of the younger actors, Hawthorne and Wysocki, provide a vivid contrast to these older characters from an older world. The interactions between the two of them are initially reminiscent of another couple that famously moves into an apartment in a play: Paul and Corie Bratter, the newlyweds in Neil Simon’s 1963 play, Barefoot in the Park, who also discover their palpable incompatibility before the night is over. Hawthorne delivers a beguiling performance that reveals itself gradually. Wysocki, affable and easygoing, is Paul to her Corrie, but also George to her darkly troubled Gracie. Voice is unsure of whether she loves Paul, or even if she is capable of love.
Playwright Yee doesn't flinch from bringing the tone of children's storytelling to this most adult tale. In this play that harks back to earlier times, I was reminded of such 1960s entertainments as "Fractured Fairytales” on “Rocky and Bullwinkle" and the famed "You Don't Have to be Jewish" comedy album, both of which depended upon adult humor amplified by the delicious expressiveness and sound of ethnic accents. That was, of course, the last decade when a significant percentage of the audience -- especially in places like New York City -- might be expected to have good Yiddish vocabularies.
The dialogue of this script creates the impression of Eastern European Jewish speech patterns -- "Whatchu mean you don't see it lately?" "I want hat!" "Is probably just below chair" -- but does not use a single word of Yiddish. Still, Yee's script is a linguistic feast, with dialogue that evokes this rich tradition. She crafts lines that demand to be spoken with specific cadences and inflections, particularly for the Wall character and the older Jewish characters. The play's exploration of memory and names emerges as one of its most affecting themes.
The fact that Hechtman cannot remember his wife's name becomes not just a running joke but a poignant metaphor for recognition and what we owe to those we claim to love. Hunter brings surprising emotional depth to his character's late-play realization of his wife's name, investing what could be a simple gag with genuine catharsis. This theme of remembering and naming resonates throughout both timelines, as Voice discovers her connection to these mysterious figures from the past.
The production ventures deeper into folkloric territory through the character of the Golem, played with total physical commitment by Wysocki, who must effect some quick changes from Gabe into a sensational Golem costume by designer Kari Drozd that makes him look like a cross between Swamp Thing, Toxic Avenger, and Cousin It. Though the Golem speaks only in grunts and moans, Wysocki creates a character of surprising expressiveness, serving as both comic relief and a poignant reminder of the Jewish mystical traditions that inform the play's spiritual landscape.
The Wall character is omniscient and all-seeing, claiming to know everything that happens in the house: "Wall is everywhere." "I see all." Sometimes Wall is undeniably self-important, referring to itself as the "most important character in story." Wall speaks in riddles and prophetically seems to understand things about the characters' pasts and futures that they themselves don't know. Wall is sometimes seductive and sometimes manipulative; "If you hear wall, you must be special type person," Wall assures Voice, flatteringly. Wall also has a profound sense of drama.
This is an entirely vocal performance, spoken from offstage, literally behind a wall. The character's fractured language, broken syntax, and missing articles create a distinctive verbal world for the actor to inhabit. It might seem odd, then, that one of Buffalo's foremost physical comedians, Charmagne Chi -- known for her outrageous willingness to roll boldly across the floor for a laugh, her wry facial expressions, and her deadpan delivery -- should be cast in the role. Wall seems to be scripted for a different sort of actor, someone with the expressive vocal virtuosity of the classic Yiddish Yenta, the likes of Elaine May, Mae Questel, or June Foray. These are performers who could harness the power of an accent for both comedic and dramatic effect. Chi is further inhibited by having a vocal quality uncannily similar to Mangus’s, especially when she employs the lower registers of her voice. Still, hidden behind a wall and deprived of her unique comic assets, Chi manages to assay the lines with great sincerity and humorous charm.
The set by Chris Cavanagh, dominated by a worn-out easy chair and an increasing expanse of trash is versatile and efficiently moves the play through its multiple locations. The sound by Tom Makar is effective, though the “hat music,” often referenced in the script is not presented especially clearly or emphatically, and the voice of the wall could use a boost in volume and resonance.
Director Vaughan boldly indulges the humor of the piece, and delightfully establishes the stark differences and startling similarities between the two couples. In effect Hunter and Mangus are in one play, and Hawthorne and Wysocki are in another. Vaughan comfortably melds the two and elicits highly satisfying performances from these actors. His major challenge is to balance whimsy and emotional depth. The play delivers a heavy sentimental message but is, ultimately, a light and humorous confection. This staging weighs rather heavily into its more sobering elements.
While its heart seems pure, on opening night, the production, performed without intermission, did not seem to earn its hour and 45-minute length. Despite small reservations, "The Hatmaker's Wife" offers a nostalgic nod to Jewish theatrical traditions while exploring timeless themes of love, recognition, and the stories that quite literally surround us. The Jewish Repertory Theatre has created a space where these stories can continue to be told, even if they sometimes wear their whimsy a bit too heavily.
The Hatmaker's Wife" runs through May 25th at Jewish Repertory Theatre. For tickets and information, visit their website.
