How are people challenged in a play like “Old Wicked Songs?
” DR: The play is about a young man, a pianist, who was at the top of his career, and is now blocked creatively. He goes to study with a distinguished professor in Vienna, who is also blocked. Once the two men learn to love and respect and trust each other, they realize that they have each shied away from dealing with who they really are. The young man, who is Jewish, pretends to be a Presbyterian, while the old man never admits till the end that he is a Holocaust survivor. They have both been living in a mirage world, not really happy or fully functioning. I think the audiences really relate to the struggle of finding one’s identity. The specific struggle in the play is about nurturing a Jewish identity, but the message is more universal than that. It’s about how finding one’s identity and being comfortable with it, no matter who you are, helps you live at the highest level that you can. In Old Wicked Songs, produced by Daryl Roth, two pianists use music to come to grips with their Je
