←Recommendations of AFIKOMAN

11/28/2024. AFIKOMAN is a beautiful and heartfelt play about a Jewish family at Passover. Playwright Sam Heyman has written with care and understanding about the holiday and has brought to life smart, honest characters. The ending is sweet and makes you feel all the feels. Oh, and a Manischewitz hangover sounds like literally the worst thing ever!

A beautiful play exploring family ties, generational conflicts and the journey toward healing and acceptance. Centering two adult brothers with lingering trauma in their past, who've gathered at the home of one for a Passover Seder, Heyman makes his characters and their struggles feel so real that it's startling to remember after reading that they're characters and not actual living humans. With a lovely and hopeful ending, this would make a wonderful addition to any one-act festival.

Projections are both what we see before us and what we set in front of our faces, both what we see others as and what we intend for ourselves. It is not always a choice to do so, but the standard bearings we recognize push themselves before intention and understanding, much as the trouble Heyman's characters find themselves in here.

Perhaps in this way it's important that we hide our projections from ourselves so that we may find the truth in them and overcome what makes us insecure, perhaps find it in Afikoman.

Using the Afikoman as a metaphor, Heyman presents Leo, hoping to be found, so he can live the life HE wants to live, not the one he thinks other family members (i.e., his rabbi brother Joel) expect him to live. The writing is pure and relatable, the feelings leap off the page. Hope for a better future is desired, then finally discussed; a family seems ready to overcome a family tragedy and individual doubts so that they can move on. Well worth reading.

This play is a really beautiful meditation on what it means to miss someone who's been gone longer than you knew them. American Jewish families have a very particular way of speaking to each other that Heyman really captures well here. Well done!

What a lovely, deep and rueful short play that both touches the heart and the mind. A Jewish family around Passover is well trod material, but Sam Heyman delves deep into what makes the family tick, with love and empathy. I'd love to see it done.

Ah, we all can get so stuck while hiding! This is a beautiful new one-act that delves deeply into family trauma in a loving and theatrical way. This is also a healing journey that will be quite effective and moving onstage. Beautiful work!

AFIKOMAN is a touching family drama that focuses on trauma, expectations, and healing. Sam Heyman beautifully weaves Passover tradition into the Rubin family dynamic and we are all invited in to the intimate family moments these characters share. This is a lovely holiday play, with a lot of warmth.

Highly Recommended!

Hiding is a rational, natural response in lieu of having the difficult conversations. Trauma is complex, exceedingly hard to work through with our own selves, much less other people, or perhaps most frighteningly, those closest to us. Heyman's moving Seder play reminds us how insurmountable it can feel to be open with those we love. That it's often messy, and we say things we regret. But if we can manage to come out of hiding, or be vulnerable enough to search for one another, that it is worth it. Beautiful piece.

A modern family drama rich with complex history and humor, AFIKOMEN makes resonant use of Passover symbolism and explores how shared trauma can leave us lost and broken, or found and on our way to healing. The Rubin’s story is a microcosm of the generational trauma navigated by so many Jewish families. Heyman’s sensitive portrayal of Rivka, a tween trying to understand her father’s hidden history, is especially touching. Jewish readers will immediately find the Rubins familiar, but AFIKOMAN is relatable to anyone trying to find themselves, and to be seen by their loved ones.