Winner of the 2022 Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards for Best Play, Joshua Harmon’s Prayer for the French Republic bursts onto Broadway after MTC’s highly acclaimed extended, sold-out Off-Broadway run. In 1944, a Jewish couple in Paris desperately awaits news of their missing family. More than 70 years later, the couple’s great-grandchildren find themselves facing the same question as their ancestors: "Are we safe?" This celebrated work by the author of Bad Jews and Significant Other is about history, home and the effects of an ancient hatred. The New York Times calls it "thought-provoking, heart-wrenching and wickedly funny." Directing is David Cromer, a Tony Award® winner for The Band's Visit.
As a three-hour-and-two-intermission multigenerational family epic that’s Serious But Also Funny — and full of prolonged opportunities for actors to shout — it’s essentially purpose-built to win awards, and it has. Off Broadway, it nabbed Outstanding Play and Outstanding New Off-Broadway Play from the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle, respectively. It has the shape of something profound and easily laudable, but inside that outline, though it doesn’t shy away from gnarly questions, it often feels showy in its engagement with them. Like that guy who corners you at the grad-school mixer, Prayer for the French Republic is smart and it has a heart in there, but its primary interest is in its own demonstrations of rhetoric.
Yet while Harmon does nod towards a more universal meaning to “never again,” when Patrick notes at the play’s conclusion that he is “rooting for all the wanderers of the world,” Prayer does not ultimately have room to carry the horrors in Gaza alongside more specifically Jewish concerns. You might argue that’s not what this play is about — but how can we leave it outside? It is hard not to feel discomfort in abstractly pondering “Could it happen here?” when we see, right now, what is happening there. The heart of Prayer lies in, above all else, the search for safety, for peace, and for comfort. Prayer bitterly reminds us that all of this has happened before, and most likely will again. In that sense, its timing remains sadly perfect.
2022 | Off-Broadway |
Off-Broadway |
2024 | Broadway |
Manhattan Theatre Club Original Broadway Production Broadway |
Year | Ceremony | Category | Nominee |
---|---|---|---|
2024 | Drama League Awards | Distinguished Performance | Betsy Aidem |
2024 | Drama League Awards | Outstanding Production of a Play | Prayer for the French Republic |
2024 | Tony Awards | Best Lighting Design of a Play | Amith Chandrashaker |
2024 | Tony Awards | Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play | Betsy Aidem |
2024 | Tony Awards | Best Play | Joshua Harmon |
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