Charleigh Wolf, Sally Wingert, and Avi Aharoni Photo by Sarah Whiting

We know that attempt to disrupt the American rite of a peaceful transfer of power was squashed, and that Joe Biden did become certified by Congress that day, and was inaugurated as President of the United States two weeks later. The Last Yiddish Speaker is playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer's response to that upheaval, albeit not in an historically precise way. In her reckoning, the mob won and our government took a total turn to anti-intellectual, anti-immigrant, Christian nationalism.

The play is set in a fictional upstate New York small town called Granville. It is May, 2029–eight years and some months after the storming of the capitol–though that real event is never referred to, something akin to it is mentioned as a touchpoint for changes that had swept the nation since then. We meet seventeen-year-old Mary (Carleigh Wolf) roiling over the latest: a proclamation that women may no longer attend degree-granting colleges. Mary, an excellent student, had been banking on attending NYU and takes no comfort in the fact that secretarial and nursing programs are permitted. She hopes she and her father, Paul, receive their passports in time to go to Canada so she can attend college there. Paul (Avi Aharoni), who works at the Granville Walmart, fears that their passports will never arrive.

Their dilemma is that they moved to Granville from the city a year ago and changed their names to conceal the fact that they are Jewish. They were secular Jews who never went to shul, and Paul only considers himself a Jew culturally. But, as his father once said to him, no matter what happens, "you are a Jew because when they come knocking on doors, they will knock on yours." Mary, whose real name is Sarah, is miserable, chaffing against having to fit into a high school that is all white, with Christian prayers recited daily, and where students are taught how to clean and load their firearms in order to be prepared when they encounter "the wrong kind of people."

Paul lives in fear that her righteous anger will lead to their secret being discovered, especially by John (Carter Graham), Sarah's seventeen-year-old classmate. John is a sweet, clean-cut boy assigned to regularly inspect their home with a checklist and pistol for signs of anything contrary to the new order of things. John sees nothing askew in this, having never lived anywhere else or with people in any way unlike himself and his family. And though he recognizes Sarah as being unlike the other kids he knows, he is drawn to her, in part for that very reason–and is hopeful that she will go to the prom with him.

One night a stranger knocks at Paul and Sarah's door. In enters a very old, very Old-World-looking woman (Sally Wingert), speaking Yiddish and bearing a note that says: "This is your Aunt Chava. It is your turn to take care of her." Paul states he never knew of any Aunt Chava, and that her presence puts their very lives at risk. But Sarah is drawn to her warmth, to the opportunity to learn Yiddish and to learn about Jewish practice. She reasons that they have no idea how many Jews are left, and that Aunt Chava may be the last person alive who speaks Yiddish. She helps the old woman shed the layers of scarves, coats, and wraps that encircle her weary frame, including a coat with the yellow star assigned to Jews by the Nazis. Where is she from? Aunt Chava's answers defy belief but Sarah doesn't care, or perhaps chooses to believe this stranger who feels like a gift, while Paul dismisses Chava's ranting as dementia.

The Last Yiddish Speaker is Six Point Theater's first production of the 2025-2026 season. It is a powerful selection, both for the clear relevance the play has to our current national life, and for the insight and imagination with which playwright Laufer has conceived these four characters, crafted authentic dialogue for them, and devised a narrative that, even as it draws on magical realism, feels compellingly real. Under director Amy Rummenie's helm, the play is beautifully unspooled, causing us to be concerned about these people, recognizing that none are inherently bad, and steadily building tension through 100 minutes without intermission as we strain to envision a redemptive outcome.

The four performances are superb. After last appearing at Six Points as God in An Act of God, Wingert, a terrific comedienne, takes on another role that embraces the eternal. Wingert's Aunt Chava offers notes of comic relief, displaying a sense of humor, as the character notes, that is essential to one's survival through waves of trauma. More somberly, she conveys the balanced wisdom that adherence to one's truth is essential, but so is doing what one must to survive. And her spoken Yiddish is impeccable (like Paul, I had parents who only spoke Yiddish when they didn't want the kids to know what they were saying, but I've heard enough over the years to have an informed opinion).

Aharoni is terrific as Paul, distraught over what he must do to keep himself and his daughter safe, at the cost of diminishing her natural instincts toward the pursuit of truth and justice. Aharoni astutely conveys the quandary of exactly what it means to be a secular, cultural Jew, while knowing that he does not have the option of shedding that label. Wolf delivers an accomplished performance as Sarah, bringing to genuine life the rebellious spirit of a highly intelligent seventeen-year-old who sees injustice in the world, the delight in discovering an outlet to claim her identity, and her frustration at not being able to simply remake the world. Graham, who just graduated from the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater BFA Actor Training Program, could not be more perfect as John, with his aw-shucks simplicity, farm-boy good looks, kindness, and naivete, trusting that the current order of things is the right path and registering shock when he suddenly realizes that life is more complicated than he had be taught to believe.

Michael Hoover's set design provides a detailed sense of the house Paul and Sarah found to live out their secret in Granville, decorated with a pleasant mix of furnishings that convey no particular style, but a leaning toward tradition, and numerous images of Jesus and crosses adorning the walls. Todd M. Reemtsma's lighting effectively conveys day shifting into night and the dawning of a new day, focusing on the emotional center of each scene. Annie Cady and Anna Rubey, co-costume designers, marvelously devised the piles of clothing wrapped around Aunt Chava and a sleek prom dress for Sarah that shows her potential shift from bib overall-wearing rebel to romantic partner. Anita Kelling's sound direction enables every word of the play to be crisply heard, and provides lovely, melancholic Jewish melodies as bridges between scenes.

The play was first staged in spring 2024 by Philadelphia's InterAct Theatre Company. This means Laufer did not have the results of the 2024 election to work with, and many of the perpetrators of the January 6 mayhem were, at the time, behind bars. Events being what they have been, we now are living through a variation, or perhaps a foreshadowing of her prognostication. A line in the play about killing off all the farm workers (though John earnestly denies they were not actually "killed") feels close to home, for one example. Laufer's invented state of affairs eight years after her fictionalized fall of Democracy, as we have known it, may be especially effective because we can distance ourselves by virtue of it being fiction, yet it illuminates much of what has become–or threatens to become–truth.

The Last Yiddish Speaker runs through November 9, 2025, at Six Points Theater, Highland Park Community Center, 1978 Ford Parkway, Saint Paul MN. For tickets and information, please call 651-647-4315 or visit www.sixpointstheater.org.

Playwright: Deborah Zoe Laufer; Director: Amy Rummenie; Scenic Designer: Michael Hoover; Costume Design: Annie Cady & Anna Rubey; Lighting Design: Todd M. Reemtsma; Sound Design: Anita Kelling; Properties Design: Bobbie Smith; Technical Director: Brady Whitcomb; Intimacy Director: Elizabeth DeSotelle; Firearms Consultant: Mason Tyer; Stage Manager: Miranda Shunkwiler; Assistant Stage Manager: Becca Kravchenko.

Cast: Avi Aharoni (Paul), Carter Graham (John), Charleigh Wolf (Sarah), Sally Wingert (Aunt Chava).