ANDREA PHOX
Becca Suskauer and Harris Milgrim co-star in “How My Grandparents Fell in Love” at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch.
“Would you get blintzes with me tonight?” That invitation for a first date may sound strange. But this is 1933, in Rovna, Poland, and 26-year-old Charlie, Polish-born but living in The United States for the last 10 years, is trying to get to know Chava, a 21-year-old hat store employee who has caught his eye. The story of their courtship is told in the new musical “How My Grandparents Fell in Love,” which is currently having its world premiere at New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch.
The musical is small in scale: Just two actors and an onstage pianist. But it delivers mightily, with hummable songs, charming performances by the actors playing the grandparents-to-be, a big emotional payoff, and even some sociopolitical relevance in our troubled times. I compile a list of my favorite New Jersey theater productions at the end of every year, and I’m sure that this will be on it, this year.
Cary Gitter — whose “Gene & Gilda” was produced by George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick in December — wrote the book, building it around the few facts he knew about how his own paternal grandparents met. Neil Berg wrote the music, and both men collaborated on the lyrics.
The musical starts with Eva (Becca Suskauer), in modern times, presenting a final project for a “Heritage, History and Identity” course she is taking. The title of the project is “How My Grandparents Fell in Love.” She explains that she has examined old documents and interviewed relatives in an attempt to find out “who my grandparents were and, I guess, who I am.”
ANDREA PHOX
Becca Suskauer and Harris Milgrim in “How My Grandparents Fell in Love.”
We are soon transported to Rovna in 1933, with Suskauer also playing Chava, the young woman who became Eva’s grandmother, and Harris Milgrim playing Chava’s Polish-American suitor, Charlie. Both are Jewish; half of the people in Rovna, in fact, are Jewish, Chava mentions at one point.
Charlie, who works as a cobbler in Hoboken, has returned to Poland for a few weeks, in hopes of finding a wife. His cousin had a woman in mind, but she and Charlie didn’t hit it off. But then Charlie noticed Chava, working in the hat store, and the brightly colored dresses she wears.
He is a bit brash and a bit goofy, and pursues her aggressively. But in true rom-com fashion, she is not interested — at first. She is a serious young woman — intent on studying languages at Warsaw University and then becoming a linguistics professor — and she sees Charlie as “a man with his head in the clouds.” He loves novels; she dismisses them as “sentimental” and “a waste of time.” She has no interest in becoming someone’s wife, she says, and wants to stay close to her family. A romance with an American is out of the question.
But she is curious about America, and so she shows up when he invites her to meet him for blintzes and tea in a cafe near the hat shop. And they discuss, among other things, the “magical land” of Hoboken.
“Oh, Hoboken/When I found it, I was awoken,” he sings. “Sprinkled with grit and grace/It’s a wonderful place.”
Things between them intensify pretty quickly. He helps her get through a difficult day. They drink some Schnapps. They go out dancing. But even when things start to get romantic, Chava keeps her emotional distance.
While it’s not a happily-ever-after kind of story, they have agreed, by the end of the musical, that they will face the future together. (I don’t think I’m giving too much away by telling you that; the musical is called “How My Grandparents Fell in Love,” after all.)
ANDREA PHOX
Becca Suskauer and Harris Milgrim in “How My Grandparents Fell in Love.”
Though this is, primarily, a love story, there is discussion, throughout, of the European antisemitism of the era, and what is happening in German in 1933, and how that might impact Poland. Chava has lived through pogroms, and her brother, unseen but discussed, is an activist fighting fascism.
“What are they going to do: Get rid of all of us? They can’t do that. So we’ll push on, and we’ll fight back, and we’ll be fine,” Chava says, optimistically. But Charlie is not so sure.
In Charlie’s experience, and Chava’s dreams, the United States is almost too good to be true. A place where immigrants are welcomed, and economic opportunity abounds, and fascism would never be tolerated. A place, in other words, unlike the United States of 2025.
“How My Grandparents Fell in Love” is heartwarming and hopeful, despite its dark overtones. I hope it will continue to be produced, through good and bad times. But at the present moment, it is, sadly, impossible to watch it without thinking about how the world is changing, and how history may be repeating itself.
New Jersey Repertory Company in Long Branch will present “How My Grandparents Fell in Love” through Aug. 10. Visit NJRep.org.
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