American Son

One night at a police station in Israel. A black mother is searching for her son, who has been missing for hours. Facing the wall of bureaucracy, she tries to gather fragments of information from internet rumors, profiles, and police theories, which together form a vivid picture of reality in Israel in 2020 for those who were born with the wrong color. Prejudices, racism, and concepts like “excessive policing” and “selective enforcement,” which former Ethiopian immigrants are all too familiar with, converge on this night for a woman who simply wants to know where her child is.

A play by Christopher Damus Brown
Translation and adaptation: Gor Koren and Ird Rubinstein
Directed by: Tamar Kinan
Participants: Ruth Essarsai, Yishai Golan, Yoav Levy / Yossi Yarom, Adam Kanda

Original Broadway Production Produced by Jefferey Richards Simpson Street Rebecca Gold Will Trice Stephen C. Byrd Ala Jones-Harvey Nnamdi Asomugha Dominick LaRuffa Jr. & Co. Greenleaf Productions Van Kaplan Willette & Manuel Klausner Jada Pinkett Smith The Miami Group Lu-Shawn M. Thompson Act 4 Entertainment Gabrielle Palitz Carl & Robin Washington Bruce Robert Harris and Jack W. Batman Shonda Rhimes Bellanca Smigel Rutter Salmira & Son Jayne Baron Sherman Steve Stoute for UnitedMasters Steven Toll Dwayne Wade Gabrielle Union-Wade and the Shubert Organization.

Photo: Kafir Bolotin, Gabriel Beharlia