A tense and striking 2-hour exploration of Jewish identity
Arthur Miller has always had a strong presence in England, with the playwright cited as the most frequently produced post Second World War dramatist in the UK in 2023. With multiple Miller plays running or scheduled for this year alone, London in particular has a thirst for the author.
One of his later (1994), and less-performed plays, Broken Glass speaks to Miller’s own Jewish heritage and his practise as a cultural, rather than a religious Jew. These complicated feelings around faith, tradition and assimilation are felt deeply in the community just as much now as in 1938.
The Young Vic’s revival of Broken Glass is honest and brutal. Running at 2 hours with no interval, this play explores what it means to be Jewish in America during the rise of the Nazis in Germany. Following the marital life of a Jewish couple, the audience soon learns that Sylvia (Pearl Chanda) has become spontaneously paralysed and is unable to walk. Her husband Phillip (Eli Gelb), seeks the advice of Dr Harry Hyman (Alex Waldmann), who reveals he believes the condition to be purely psychological and caused by the horrors she’s reading in the newspapers, combined with the treatment she’s receiving at home.
As Sylvia pours over newspapers detailing the cruelties happening to her kinsman in Germany, those around her tell her she’s being ‘dramatic’ and that ‘it’ll all blow over’. With the subtle mentions of Jewish quotas and the prejudices Jewish people face already in NYC, Miller effectively demonstrates how easily oppression becomes normality.
Director Jordan Fein has cast the ensemble extremely young, especially with the specific timestamps and ages mentioned in the play. This has a somewhat jarring effect against the other, very naturalistic elements of the production, including the very disappointing and unnecessary use of a live goldfish in a minuscule bowl.
Despite some wayward creative choices, the ensemble is incredibly strong, with no one character standing out among the rest. Chanda gives a simpering performance as Sylvia, only to turn around and start firing on all cylinders at the eleventh hour. Gelb is an unlikeable yet sympathetic husband, as he explores his own internalised antisemitism as the only Jew at his firm determined to make his mark.
Juliet Cowan is a convincingly naive sister to Sylvia, hammering home how even Jewish people couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about when synagogues started being burned down in Germany. With a score of fabulous New York accents and a brilliant laugh from the spirited shiksa wife Nancy Carroll, this is a vibrant production, impossible to look away from.
A tense 2 hours that strikes an uneasy chord in the audiences of today, Broken Glass runs at the Young Vic until 18 April, 2026.
Tickets here.