Is love enough to keep a couple together when one of them has been the victim of hate crime he simply can’t get past? This is the question posed by English playwright Stephen Laughton in his gut-punchingly powerful One Jewish Boy, now getting a compelling West Coast premiere at Echo Theater Company.

It’s been six years since an anti-Semetic tough beat Jesse (Zeke Goodman) within an inch of his life, and though it might seem that if anyone could understand what he’s been going through since then, it would be his mixed-race wife Alex (Sharae Foxie), such is unfortunately not the case given that when we first meet the couple in 2020, she has just returned to her husband and their toddler son after an unexplained month-long absence, divorce papers in hand.

Playwright Laughton then zigzags back and forth through time as we piece together clues about what prompted Alex to hightail it off to Paris and what the “unreasonable behavior” Alex has accused her husband of in said papers just might be.

Though this makes for a considerably more challenging approach than a simple chronological retelling of events would be, if you’re anything like this reviewer you won’t mind being kept on your toes (and on the edge of your seat to boot).

 We’re there for the couple’s first date back in 2012, though if Jesse’s admittedly drug-blurred memories are to be trusted, this isn’t the first time they’ve met, though it is apparently the first time Alex has heard of “the eight days of Jew Christmas,” as Jesse grew up calling Chanukah.

We’re there three years later too when Jesse proposes marriage, and again the following year to celebrate their wedding and Alex’s revelation that she is pregnant with their first child.

And all would likely be sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows ahead for the happy couple had One Jewish Boy’s forwards-backwards trajectory not already been interrupted several times by flashes of the unprovoked assault that left Jesse bruised and broken on London’s Parliament Hill.

And if being the child of black mother and white father meant that Alex grew up well aware that racism could strike at any time, it seems equally likely that having been raised in a posh North London suburb, Jesse had been largely untouched by anti-Semitism until the aforementioned attack left him scarred … and scared for life.

Factor in the 2019 elections that split progressives between those who supported the Labour Party’s liberal social agenda and those troubled by many of its leaders’ perceived anti-Semitism and it’s perhaps no wonder that Jesse and Alex find their marriage in jeopardy.

Playwright Laughton provides no easy answers to the problems that beset these two, nor does he see the world they inhabit in simplistic black-and-white terms, and his play is all the richer for not taking sides and letting audiences debate the issues it raises for themselves.

Director Chris Fields grabs our attention from the get-go and never loosens his grip as two terrific young American actors have us convinced they are a pair of Londoners from markedly different upbringings (Jesse is from the 50% white Highgate, Alex is from the 50% black Peckham) with neighborhood-specific accents to match (though no dialect coach receives program credit).

 Goodman gives Jesse an engaging mix of charisma, intelligence, and charm that portends big things ahead for the up-and-coming actor-writer-filmmaker, and Foxie, a multi-hyphenate herself, is simply electrifying as a young woman who got herself into more than she bargained for when she fell unsuspectingly in love.

Working in tandem with lighting designer Matt Richter, scenic designer Justin Huen backs the stage with graffiti-filled panels that reveal sudden, shocking “invisible ink” surprises beneath the surface.

Richter’s sound design is a potent mix of dramatic underscoring (original music by autodealer) and unsettling effects and costume designer Dianne K. Graebner outfits Jesse and Alex in a series of just-right outfits.

One Jewish Boy is produced by Marie Bland and Fields. Hilary Oglesby is associate producer. Natalya Nielsen is assistant director. Bianca Rickheim is production stage manager. Lucy Pollak is publicist.

Like Clarkston, How It’s Gon’ Be, and Hooded, or Being Black for Dummies One before it, One Jewish Boy exemplifies Los Angeles intimate theater at its edgy, hot-button best. It opens Echo Theater Company’s 2025 season with an explosive bang.

The Echo Theater Company @ Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village. Through April 28. Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8:00. Sundays at 2:00. Also Thursdays April 10, 17, and 24 at 8:00.
www.EchoTheaterCompany.com

–Steven Stanley
March 28, 2025
Photos: Cooper Bates

Visit www.theatreinla.com/nowplayingrs.php for a review roundup of what’s now playing in theaters around Los Angeles.

Tags: Echo Theater Company, Los Angeles Theater Review, Stephen Laughton