A cloying pungency of lavender oil permeates the Arcola’s subterranean stairway (and your nostrils), long before you reach the playing area. As you enter, a man (Matthew James Hinchliffe) plays a calmly resonant percussion instrument, as though we are about to enjoy a collective massage. Our meditation on the Jewish condition begins with the reflections of an elderly woman Miriam (Caroline Gruber) who we learn survived her harrowing adolescence in Bratislava.
Caroline Gruber in As Long As We Are Breathing at the Arcola Theatre. Copyright Lidia Crisafulli
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