Winnipeg Jewish Theatre seems to have resolved this problem by crafting Winnipeg author Sheldon Oberman's "The Always Prayer Shawl" into a compact 65-minute family production that has hope, humor and history.
On Thursday's opening night performance, Mariam Bernstein's energetic direction seemed to succeed with the mostly adult crowd. Top notch local actors Chris Sigurdson, Monique Marcker, Harry Nelken and Darrell Baran, and newcomer Daniel Cipilinski, played out the heartfelt material devotedly.
As adult fare, The Always Prayer Shawl may seem to be just another story about a grandparent who cradles his grandchild on his lap to tell about the olden days. Twice-told, yes, sophisticated, yes, but unoriginal, no.
This snappily-paced narrative drama is about a Jewish grandfather, Adam (played by Sigurdson), passing on his prayer shawl - and his tradition - to his 12-year-old grandson, Jacob (played by Cipilinsky).
The play functions fairly well from both characters' perspectives For children, it's a play about young Jacob's discovery of the vast world of cultural history, with all its drama and adventure.
For adults, it's a play about Adam's life, his struggles, and how he is challenged to try to interest his modern grandson in something as unmodern as a prayer shawl.
The prayer shawl itself appears not only as a prop, but as a shawl-like backdrop with symbolic images of several generations of people sketched upon it.
The actors excelled at switching roles, not only to play different characters, but also the same characters at different ages. Bernstein's directorial management of the countless exits and entrances, which gave the play a television-style pacing, was handled expertly.
As the elderly Adam, Sigurdson was superbly convincing in switching from age to age without losing the character he established at the beginning.
Marcker's many roles as a traditional mother, a racist schoolteacher, and Adam's political activist wife provided a stalwart, if subordinate, female perspective inside a very male-oriented drama. Some of Baran's characters were more shadowy and remained in the background. Cipilinski, however, endowed his Jacob with a wide-eyed enthusiasm that made it believable that he was a kid who could become fired up about his grandfather's war stories.