The Play MY NAME IS ASHER LEV from Chaim Potok's Novel

The final performance of the three actor, one act, single set play, "My Name is Asher Lev" was held at the 222 in Healdsburg on Sunday.  The play's based on the novel by Chaim Potok about a Hasidic youth whose affinity for drawing and painting is considered an aberration within his family, community and faith.  This contentious premise may seem trifling.  I finding it a lot to embrace or be concerned with.  However, a vital analogy was illustrated in this illuminating play.  What must an artist endure and overcome to ensure the expression of their truths remain sovereign?  This self-motivating drive to create art of value must surpass all obligations without compromise or censorship.  Maintaining a conviction of an innate gift for music, art or athleticism having being endowed by God is a conceit I eschew.  It's not relevant or important for this play to spew theology to resonate profundity.  The play's director, Amy Kossow, included her own beliefs in the program notes regarding the existence of God.  I found her views irrelevant and self-indulgent.  Blasphemous bantering aside, there's plenty to be said about this exceptionally affecting production.  Foremost, credit fine acting from its three actors, Jeremy Kahn in the tile role played Lev as a boy, an adolescent and an adult.  Danielle Levin was Asher's mom and other minor roles.  David Sinaiko was especially winning as Asher's father, and  as artist, Jacob Kahn who mentors Asher and is himself a lapsed Jew. The minimal staging not only sufficed it allowed the characters to be fully flushed out.  Minimal changes were all that was required to signify shifts in time spans, locations and characters.  Furthermore, Aaron Posner's adaption from Potok's novel, originally published in 1972, was a cogent adaptation which served to emphasize the essence of Asher's turmoil; whether to forgo what he's been lovingly raised to accept without question or question his faith and family as it confronts his passion.  His relentless quest for answers frustrated his beloved mother, "Enough with all the questions, Asher," she lovingly admonishes.  However, his mother acquiesces and brings him to an art museum against her husband's wishes.  This sensitive and stirring interpretation of Potok's book dealt with  affirming one's identity.  It did not negate the Hasidic community or Asher's parents despite they're being vehemently opposed to Asher's choices.  Asher's parents sought hard to understand Asher's behaviors which were so foreign to their way of life.  For Asher, the pursuit for meaning in his existence shook the foundations of his Hasidic upbringing which was only unshakeable when left unquestioned.  Despite the perceived threat Asher's artwork posed to his Hasidic community, it was the revered Rebbe who arranged for Asher to meet Jeremy Kahn.  In this moving production we're given to consider that which makes life meaningful for us and how able or flexible we can be to hold true to ourselves.   Jeremy Kahn as Asher's mentor taught him skills, discipline and elucidated the toll pursing his art would exact in suffering and loss.  Kahn left no question what signifies being means for an artist. "The responsibility of an artist is to no one but the truth of his art.  It takes great courage to tell the truth of one's existence and only great art can justify the pain it will cause."   Resounding applause due for the play MY NAME IS ASHER LEV.