Telling the stories of multiple generations…

After great success from the first run, The Lost & Found Project, New York’s only young Russian Jewish theatre ensemble headed by Anna Zicer will be holding their second run of “Covers,” written by Boris Zilberman and Ruvym Gilman. This production will have you thinking about your own covers, your journey of identity, resilience, and memory. The Russian Jewish theatre ensemble is under the direction of acclaimed Russian director Alexandre Marine, and examines the contemporary struggles faced by the melting-pot of multiple national identities portrayed through the minds of a Russian-Jewish-American-Israeli cast. Join Folksbiene.RU, a new division of the Drama Desk Award-winning National Yiddish Theatre (made possible with support from Genesis Philanthropy Group) as they perform “Covers” with a two-week schedule: Tuesday-Saturday October 1-5, and Tuesday- Sunday October 8-13 at 8 p.m., at the ArcLight Theatre, 152 West 71st Street. Additional performances will be held on the Saturdays at 3 p.m., and Sunday October 12 also at 3 p.m. Tickets are available on the events website for $30 or for a donation of your choice on Friday October 4 and 11 or for the matinee showings.

Covers is an experimental theatrical piece that explores the interrelationships between generations of a not so recently immigrated Russian Jewry. It’s an immigrant story that catches it’s participants in a limbo of being neither here nor there. They have been too long in America, but the old ways linger. The old ways are the comfort blanket for the older generation, but suffocate the younger one.

Alex Litnov, played by Sergey Nagorny, just got out of the psychiatric ward. The reason for his stay becomes apparent as we move back and forth through time and the dynamic between him and his parents becomes apparent. The pressure and weight of expectations that his parents placed on him becomes unbearable.

His older brother, Misha Litnov is the successful lawyer, with an exotic American wife and a lot of parental pressure to bear grandkids. More smothering that leads him astray into the arms of Sharon Goldshtyn. Sharon played by Anna Zicer is a fiery Russian Israeli immigrant with career on her mind and a forgotten link to her past. One she’s not looking forward to finding. But the cousin she comes to visit after their grandfather’s death gives her no choice. Magda, the cousin played by Mariya King, is the antithesis of overbearing and exuberant Sharon. Their dynamic is powerful and often catches the viewer off guard as an otherwise tearful scene leads into laughter and then back to tears.

And so on and so forth, Covers leads us through time, through relationships and through the links between them all. The intricate and delicate web that exists in these fragile relationships that are formed through hardships.

Covers’ troupe is formed by actors who all immigrated from the former Soviet Union. The stories they act out might not be so much acting as retelling of their own story, their family’s story and the story of multiple generations from the same wave of immigration.

A must see for anyone who calls one country home, but has memories of another. We are all immigrants.

Go to http://www.eventbrite.com/event/7565977041/eorg for tickets.