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The Jewish holiday of Sukkot commemorates the 40 years the Israelites spent wandering in the desert before reaching the Holy Land. The seven-day festival is meant to be a time of rejoicing even in the face of adversity. As such it can resonate with interesting depths of human psychology. Matthew Leavitt explores this theme in his witty and touching comedy-drama Sukkot, now at 59e59 Theaters in a production by The 6th Act directed by Joel Zwick (My Big Fat Greek Wedding).
A year after his wife’s death, Patrick (Andy Robinson) is still deep in mourning. He’s Irish-Catholic, she was Jewish, but they raised their three children in a secular/atheistic mode. Son Asher (Jonathan Slavin) has hit a low point. Jobless and single, he moved back in with his folks to take care of his mother as she died painfully of cancer, and never left. His sisters Mairead (Liza Seneca) and Eden (Natalie Lander) arrive for their mother’s unveiling, a Jewish graveside ritual that takes place a year after a death.
The unveiling happens to coincide with Sukkot, and Patrick has taken it into his head that his late wife would have loved knowing that the family is gathering in a sukka, a temporary hut that Jews traditionally build to inhabit – strictly speaking, to actually eat and sleep in – during Sukkot. That’s despite the fact that Patrick has only just researched the sukka tradition and the kids have never heard of it.
The family dynamics are rapidly established. Bitter Asher sulks through an inferiority complex with respect to his father’s prominent career as a writer and academic. Mairead, a doctor with two very small children, feels guilty she didn’t pitch in more during their mother’s illness. Free-spirited Eden, nearing 40 without a steady career or relationship, still feels the sting of her judgmental mother, now reflected through older sister Mairead.
Unveilings
As in pretty much any play about a family gathering, secrets are revealed. The power of this play lies not in its plot details but in Leavitt’s methodical unpeeling of the layers of character, brought to charged life by the superb cast and the momentum of Joel Zwick’s artful and zippy direction.
The script quickly shakes off a slight tendency toward the cheap laugh (“And you’re sure you didn’t have a stroke?”) and settles into a masterful relay race of pointed, witty dialogue that’s equal parts hilarious and touching. You have to hand it to a playwright who can create such a funny play around lines like “Life is an empty random meaningless joke [and] work is our sacred distraction” and topics like suicidal ideation, dementia, life-threatening illness, drug dependency, and distasteful family secrets.
My caveats are very small. The premise seems a little far-fetched: If the mother had warm feelings for Jewish traditions, wouldn’t the kids at least have some glancing knowledge of Sukkot, as they do of Chanukah? And the ending is a little pat, in line with the (fortunately short) bits of sappy scene-change music.
But Sukkot is a seriously comic gem. It’s at 59e59 Theaters through August 23, 2026.
