What does it mean to make Jewish art right now? To tell stories rooted in Jewish life that are expansive rather than reductive, textured rather than flattened into caricature or trauma? For playwright Liba Vaynberg, those questions sit at the heart of The Matriarchs—a new play about six teenage girls in suburban New Jersey negotiating Shabbas, snacks, sex, and their souls. Loosely inspired by the overlooked women of the Torah, the play is a bold, funny look at friendship, faith, and the questions that come with growing up beyond the boundaries of orthodoxy. Ahead of its premiere this September at TheaterLab, Reboot asked actor and writer Rebecca Salzhauer to speak with Vaynberg and playwright Anna Ziegler (The Wanderers, Photograph 51) about the complexities of writing Jewish stories for the stage: the fears and freedoms, the pitfalls of categorization, and the possibilities of making Jewish theater that feels alive, resonant and unafraid.

Find out more about The Matriarchs and get tickets here.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Rebecca Salzhauer: I would love to start with some context. What was your Jewish upbringing? What was your theater upbringing? 

Liba Vaynberg: I’m the first person in my family born in America, and I’m born to post-Soviet Jews. My mom is Azeri. My father is Ukrainian by way of Belarus. Being a post-Soviet Jew is an amazing experience because it means your parents are really deliberate about the fact that you’re Jewish. It was everything about you, and it was defining, but they drove to shul on Yom Kippur and ate shrimp – and were really happy to have the opportunity to do so.

Theatrically, it’s actually the same answer. In the Soviet Union, culture was one of the only ways you could worship. It was state-mandated atheism, so the ballet and the theater were the only places you could go to imagine something better – or worse – for yourself and your life. My parents were really amazing about taking us to concerts and plays, but the idea of becoming someone who makes those things was like the idea of becoming a garbageman: very noble and something people do, but we don’t necessarily want that dream for you. There was a lot of respect for the product of the arts and the impact it had but a lot of fear about the lifestyle.

Anna Ziegler: My Jewish upbringing was much more mundane, in some ways. My mother has always felt a real connection to Jewishness and Judaism that has only increased as she’s gotten older. When she had kids, she really wanted them to be raised Jewish. My father, I think, wouldn’t have cared either way. I’m in the tradition of Reform Jews who are very culturally Jewish and enjoy being part of a community and love the music and ritual and are sort of ambivalent or questioning about what religion actually means.

Theater, my parents are not the source for that in any way. They’re both lawyers, who, like Liba’s parents, were probably a little horrified that I pursued a life in the arts. My final theatrical performance was in eighth grade, a very small role where I realized the fear I was experiencing was really not worth the tiny part I was playing. I have slowly, in my life, transferred that fear and vulnerability to the writing of plays.

RS: Something I’m thinking about a lot right now is my relationship to being a “Jewish artist.” For whatever reason, maybe internalized antisemitism, I have this idea that a Jewish play is less than a play. I’m curious how you navigate your relationship to Jewish identity as an artist.

AZ: That’s a hard question. Especially right now. I have a play called The Wanderers that’s going up in London this fall. Even though I think of it as a play about people and universal themes, I worry that it will be seen as a Jewish play by people who want to categorize things. I think, like you, Rebecca, I’m a little bit allergic to the idea of being labeled as anything: a Jewish writer, a female writer. I think the danger of these categories is that they can make people smaller. The other danger, though, is that it can make you ashamed to be what you are. I don’t like that either. Over the years, I’ve embraced being a Jewish artist, even though I’m not a particularly religious Jew. I feel really grateful that the Jewish community has embraced my work. But at this moment, when a lot of people are having complicated feelings about their Jewishness and you sense in the world complicated feelings about Jews, it’s hard to know how to feel about being seen as a Jewish artist.

LV: I also think that most of the Jewish art I see is a trauma tale about the Holocaust, which is an important part of Jewish history and legacy and identity. Or I see Jewish work that is overtly caricature or overtly political. I do think that diminishes the three dimensionality of being a Jew and especially a Jewish woman.

RS: Those Holocaust plays and political dramas are the ones that get touted as important contributions to the canon, but we’re told that plays about Jewish women and their interiority have a smaller audience. Why do you think that is? 

LV: I think it reflects a lot of fear. I do think there is fear of women and their interiority. But I do think there is concern that if we don’t prioritize the stories of trauma, they will be forgotten. And there is some legitimacy to that concern. It’s complicated. Ideally, there’s space for all of these plays. But what happens when something is diminished is that there’s only space for one version of it.

AZ: In general, plays by and about women have a harder time making it into the canon. There’s always been this sense that women’s plays are quieter, even when I think the evidence is so loudly otherwise. The plays can be hugely ambitious and bold and poetic but still be seen as smaller stories. I have to think there’s some sexism that’s built into that, even though the audience is largely female.

LV: Female! I was just thinking that! It’s mostly women who go to the theater!

RS: Liba, tell me where The Matriarchs came from. What was the inspiration?

LV: My husband’s best friend is a woman named Miriam Gedweiser. She’s a former lawyer who now teaches Talmud at a Jewish school. We were at her house for Shabbos, and after lunch, this gaggle of 13-year-old girls came in, and they all sat down at the table, and  she started doing a Talmud lesson. I had never heard a Talmud lesson. There was nothing spiritual. It was entirely legalistic: if someone’s ox tramples on your land, how much do you owe them? I’m a big fan of the movie Yentl, and I had never seen girls take up Talmudic space. It kind of made me wonder about a world without boys. The characters slowly turned into mirrors of their Torah counterparts; each one is named after a matriarch. But I feel pretty confident in saying that you don’t need to know any Torah to get along with this play. It’s just a play about women and the largest problems they face and the smallest problems they face.

The God I’ve been taught to believe in – which I don’t know if I do or don’t – is not one that gives any answers. That was very clear in the Talmudic lesson, as well. No question will be easily answered, and if you think it is, you’re in the wrong room.

RS: The Matriarchs follows a group of Jewish girls who grow up together and grow apart. The Wanderers takes disparate Jewish stories and weaves them together. What surprised you about writing about Jews whose lives are very different from your own?

LV: There are many lanes on the highway of Judaism. There are a lot of flaws in religious communities. But I do understand why people do it. It wasn’t just in ancient times to have better hygiene and know what time it was. It was also that people took really good care of each other out there in the desert.

AZ: One of my fears with The Wanderers was that I did not want my play to vilify that community in any way. I really hoped that it was going to show the many sides of it. The woman who leaves the community in the play really misses it.

LV: But when the novelist’s father dies and he starts saying Kaddish, it’s this amazing moment. When someone dies, the words that come out are the ones that allow you to mark the ritual, to mark a power that you don’t understand.

RS: This might be a silly question, but is it a conscious choice for either of you to write plays about Jews?

AZ: Sometimes I would say there is a conscious choice not to make all my plays too Jewish. But I also feel like we’re not in that much control over what we write. Considering how many false starts I have, the ones that actually make it to the finish line feel a little arbitrary.

RS: Where do you hope Jewish theater goes in the next five years?

LV: I’m going to be honest. I just hope there is Jewish theater. I think there’s a lot of fear in programming it right now.

AZ: There’s less theater being done, period, so I hope that five years from now, theater in general has bounced back. But I would hope it feels less fraught to program Jewish plays, to program plays that touch on Israel, to program plays that are not necessarily clear-cut in their politics.

RS: In this moment, where it feels like there’s a charge to Jewish plays and Jewish identity, how are you noticing yourself shift?

AZ: Personally, not being a very outspoken political person to begin with, I am in a position that I’m not accustomed to. In the rehearsal room, I don’t feel like I can share my feelings about being Jewish or about what’s happening in the world; I’m fairly certain I would be in the minority, so I stay quiet, and it’s not a comfortable place to be. I guess I hope in five years that’s different too.

LV: I believe this is a sign of turbulence: when everything starts to feel like there’s code. I used to wear a Magen David. It’s a very Soviet Magen David. But I’ve stopped wearing it, not because I’m scared. I’ve never felt like it’s dangerous to wear it, but I feel like there’s a lot more emphasis on code, in the sense that people will look at each other now and try to figure out, “Well, what side are you on?” That feels very uncomfortable. It’s like, is this fostering conversation? Is this leading to more mitzvahs? Or is this leading to the worst kind of self-preservation?

RS: So what do you think is the way forward for us as theatermakers?

AZ: The thing that comes to mind is that we should all be more open. I think that’s the way forward. To be open and work with people who might disagree with you and not be scared to talk.

LV: No one ever thinks they’re wrong, so changing the focus a little bit from “How am I right?” to “How am I wrong?” Because I’m wrong all the time.

AZ: And if we all had humility, the world would be a lot better. None of us should be so certain that we’re right.

Rebecca Salzhauer is an actor and writer from New York. A graduate of Yale University, her credits include projects at Bay Street Theater, MTC, The Tank, and LaMaMa. Her writing has been published in The Forward, The New Haven Independent, and HowlRound Theatre Commons. She co-created and starred in the web series i’m so happy for you!!!!!​​ rebeccasalzhauer.com

Liba Vaynberg is a first generation American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. The daughter of Ukrainian and Azeri Jewish refugees, she is bilingual in English and Russian. She studied Molecular Biology at Yale before receiving her MFA at Columbia. Television credits include the upcoming show Star City (Sony/AppleTV+). Her plays include The Matriarchs (O’Neill – winner, Princess Grace finalist, Blackburn nominee, Theater J Abramson finalist, Blue Ink Award finalist, Civilians), The Gett (starring Jennifer Westfeldt at Rattlestick, CNPF, Theater Ariel), Round Table (59e59, Irons In The Fire), Scheiss Book (United Solo: Best One Woman Show, Backstage Magazine Audience Choice Award, Dixon Place, Kitchen Theater). Fellowships include COJECO BluePrint, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, IAMA Theater Residency, and LABA. As an actor, highlights include New Amsterdam (4 seasons), Annie Blumberg opposite Ed Asner & Tovah Feldshuh in the PBS broadcast of The Soap Myth, Now Jane in Bekah Brunstetter’s Oregon Trail at WP, and Lost In Yonkers opposite Marsha Mason (CT Critics’ Circle Nom).

Anna Ziegler is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. In film, Anna is adapting her play PHOTOGRAPH 51 for Leviathan Productions and Red Yes Studio. In television, Anna is writing the pilot GO, TEAM for CBS Studios/Paramount+ and Marielle Heller’s Defiant by Nature. Prior to that, Anna developed projects at Apple TV, HBO Max and AMC. Anna’s critically acclaimed plays have been produced at major theaters around the U.S. and in Australia, Israel, Japan, Italy, Germany, India, and Sweden. Her widely produced play PHOTOGRAPH 51 starring Nicole Kidman won London’s WhatsOnStage award for Best New Play. It was selected as a “Best of the Year” play by The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, and The Telegraph. Anna’s play ACTUALLY received the Ovation Award in Los Angeles for Playwriting of an Original Play. Her play THE WANDERERS, which was produced at the Roundabout Theatre Company in New York, won the San Diego Critic’s Circle Award for Outstanding New Play. Inspired by a true story, her play, BOY, was nominated for the John Gassner Award by the Outer Critics Circle. PHOTOGRAPH 51 has been released as part of Bloomsbury’s Modern Classics series. Bloomsbury/Oberon Books has published a collection of her work entitled Anna Ziegler: Plays One.   Anna Ziegler: Plays Two is also now out from Bloomsbury. Anna is a graduate of Yale and holds masters degrees in poetry from The University of East Anglia (UK) and dramatic writing from NYU. annabziegler.net