Oh God

Divine casting makes Israeli Stage's "Oh God" not to be missed -- one would only expect this of Guy Ben-Aharon's traveling production, since the play requires the casting of divinity.

This month, the only theatre company that shares the diversity and vitality of Israeli culture will tour Anat Gov's pithy and amusing "Oh God" throughout the Northeast, playing mostly at universities, as an effort to expose new audiences to current Israeli drama.

In this popular Israeli play, a psychotherapist and single mother of an autistic child, Ella (Maureen Keiller), gets a visit from a desperate new patient, God (Will Lyman).

Though the playwright was not particularly religious, her play explores mankind's relationship with God, how mankind blames God for their problems and how God seems to have abandoned them.

Known for her leftist politics, macabre humor and social messages, Gov faced the unfairness and cruelty of life head-on when, in 2008, doctors detected that she had colon cancer. Though she had a successful career as an actress and writer for stage and television, it was after she was diagnosed that she created some of her most powerful and compelling work.

In her most successful play, the award winning "Happy Ending," Gov dealt autobiographically with her illness. Gov died in 2012 and left a significant imprint on Israeli Theatre with plays such as "Best Friends," "Lysistrata," "Househusband" and "A Warm Family." Her husband, Gidi Gov, who often directed her plays and continues to promote and encourage her work, survives her.

"Humor," Gov said, "is the best medicine there is --- better than all the medical therapies -- and it's free."

When a man comes into Ella's office for counseling and announces that he's God, she figures he must be delusional. But after a bit of discussion, she realizes he telling the truth. We keep waiting for an ironic twist, because this is what we always see in American narrative. No such luck, the situation remains simple and straight forward: This man sitting in Ella's office is the creator of the universe -- and there are no excuses for why he's a human.

This is not to say the story is unsophisticated. Gov's script crackles with razor-sharp wit and deliciously dry humor. (When Ella notices that God is always nagging her, He fires back, "What? Now you're saying I'm a Jewish mother?" And when God complains that humans are terribly inhumane toward each other, Ella point out that we are simply "good students of a bad teacher.")

As a director, Ben-Aharon, the founder of the Israeli Stage, clearly articulates his own cultural voice by enlisting the talents of others. And he is careful to surround himself with very talented people.

He seeks out the finest Israeli, German and Swiss playwrights and offers Boston audiences an opportunity to familiarize themselves with something completely unique. Not only does promote unknown work, but also a good number of his writers are women.

On top of this, he hires the very best of Boston's acting talent. Maureen Keiller is neither Israeli nor Jewish, but she brings something universal to her role that reflects all the different faces of a modern woman, regardless of ethnicity. Her sense of humor is both fascinating and familiar because it's based on the everyday, the frustrating and the mundane. In other words, her character is funny because she reminds us of ourselves.

As God, Will Lyman tempers his wrath and vengeance in a way He never did in the Bible. (Let's face it, even at His most compassionate, He was rather hard to warm up to.) Lyman, who just closed "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" with the Huntington, once again shows that he can be "the white man," with all the irritating patriarchy that implies, without giving offense. He imbues every inch of God with vulnerability and humanity, giving us a much more complicated view of The Deity and expressing the humanist sentiment that the best parts of our personalities are brought out not through our talents but through our flaws.

The simple, light-hearted premise of this play, that a human portrays God, is actually quite controversial to an Orthodox audience. Giving God any face or form, in any artistic medium, is the equivalent of idol worship, (no white man with a beard for them), because if God has any specificity, He can no longer be all things.

In this play, God is not all things. He is less of a force to be reckoned with and more of a flawed father figure. God wants to be His children's best friend, but He must acknowledge that He is an authority figure.

The effect is like realizing for the first time that your parents are imperfect. Fortune may be unfair, it may be downright cruel at times, but people have the power within us to be equal to our fate.

"Oh God" runs through Oct. 27 to locations throughout the Northeast. For more information visit: israelistage.com