Review: JCC’s ‘Rise' is a history lesson wrapped in a rock concert 

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​​Within the first moment of “Rise,” a world premiere rock musical playing at the JCC Hart Theater through July 17, the inspiration behind the production is obvious.

“Rise” shares much of what made “Spring Awakening” — the rock musical about teens struggling to survive in 1890s Germany — a hit when it premiered on Broadway in 2006: young adult roles played by age-appropriate actors; colorful, flashing lights during the dance sequences and subdued purple lighting for the dramatic scenes; modern choreography with sharp movements; and characters in period costumes singing anachronistic rock music played by a band onstage. While these choices no longer feel groundbreaking, they still make for an entertaining show, and “Rise” shares a piece of history worth telling.

Writer and composer Joshua Daniel Hershfield uses his background in a punk band to bring to life the often forgotten group of young Jewish girls, the Couriers, who organized armed resistance against the Nazis. Hershfield, also playing lead guitar, continues to work on rewrites during the run of the show.
The story centers on Sarah, a young Jewish woman who finds refuge with Ruth, a Jewish mother struggling to feed her two kids, and her brother David, an immediate love interest to Sarah. “You don’t look Jewish,” Ruth remarks to Sarah, and it becomes clear her generosity has strings attached. Sarah can pass as Aryan, and can therefore travel to other Jewish ghettos to get and receive information: who has been deported, who needs medicine, who is organizing to resist. Basically, a 1940s human version of Twitter. Sarah learns there are other Jewish women organizing called the Couriers and helps them plan a surprise attack against the Nazis.

The Couriers are young adults. Sarah and David speculate on whether they want kids, while worrying they won’t have a future at all. Appropriately, the cast features high school and college-aged students, as well as a couple of 6th graders, through the SummerStage arts education program. This talented cast, led in a standout, high-stamina performance by Addison Rando as Sarah, brings the earnestness this show desperately needs.

This is not a play aiming for subtlety or subtext. With the exception of “Blame the Jews,” a disarmingly upbeat number about being scapegoated by the media, the songs mostly expect to be taken at face value. Many of the lyrics are broadly expositional (“It’s times like these we have to care for one another”) or generic enough to be cut from the show and released as a pop single (“We’ll leave all this behind/ Take my hand and I’ll take you away”). The main characters are archetypes: the lovesick writer David, the struggling mother Ruth. Sarah joins the Couriers because it’s her only hope at survival, but the audience doesn’t learn much about her beyond the historical stakes.

This is a history lesson wrapped in a rock concert, carrying the audience along on guitar solos, gloriously chaotic lighting designed by Norah Ryan, and evocative modern dance choreographed by Mandi Lynn Griffith. Much to the credit of director Madeleine Snow, everything comes together in a cohesive and compelling way. The show hits its theatrical highpoint in its Act II resistance battle sequence. It’s an homage to “Les Miserables,” complete with a barricade and waving flag, by way of a vibrant punk ballet with flashy lighting and heavy percussion.

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Given the rise in neo-Nazism and the recent banning of the graphic novel-memoir “Maus” by a Tennessee school board, a Holocaust story centered on Jewish women feels urgent. “Rise” admirably balances the heartbreaking realities of history with a hopeful spirit of resistance. The opening number hits hard with the line, “Within these walls there’s a fire ready to burn.” The image immediately evokes the incinerators at concentration camps, where Jewish people were led to their deaths, and yet the number isn’t about that. The fire ready to burn is metaphorical and internal — it’s the desire to keep their community and faith alive.

“Rise” pays tribute to the many underground Jewish resisters who, despite all odds against them, continued to fight. Americans like the narrative of being the “good guys” who won World War II, but this show acknowledges that the Allied Forces weren’t coming to save the Jewish people from being deported to concentration camps. They had to be their own heroes.

For more information, including performance times, go to jccrochester.org.

Disclosure: CITY and WXXI are media sponsors of this production.

Katherine Varga is a freelance writer for CITY. Feedback on this article can be directed to Daniel J. Kushner, CITY's arts editor, at [email protected].