New Jerusalem

It’s 1656, and a large number of Portuguese Jews have found asylum in Amsterdam from the Inquisition. There’s just one caveat: no Jew may speak of religion to the Christian Dutch. All seems to be in harmony—until Baruch de Spinoza starts airing some pretty radical ideas about God, and it comes to the attention of the city regents, who are finding that their tolerance has limits, as Spinoza is spreading his questions and theories among the young.  They put it to the leaders of the Jewish congregation: get him to recant, or excommunicate him—or we will take action. And so he is summoned before leaders of both communities to stand trial. Playwright David Ives acknowledges that nothing is known about these proceedings, only that they occurred and that Spinoza was cast out. But out of what is known, he has created a fascinating sort of courtroom drama. And he gives us a central character who is brilliant and passionate, gentle and self-deprecating, whose ideas would have a major impact upon Western thought. The result is a piece which transcends dry intellectualism, sparkling with tension, ideas, and Ivesian wit.

David Ives was born in Chicago in 1950. He received an MFA in Playwriting from Yale, and is perhaps best known for his evenings of one-act comedies All in the Timing (winner of the Outer Critics Circle Playwriting Award) and Time Flies. Other plays include Venus in Fur, The Liar (adapted from Corneille’s comedy and winner of the Charles MacArthur Best Play Award), Is He Dead? (adapted from Mark Twain), The Heir Apparent (adapted from Regnard), Polish Joke, and New Jerusalem (winner of the Hull-Warriner Award). A former Guggenheim Fellow in playwriting, he lives in New York City.