Tuesday, May 6, 2025



“A Rabbi, a Monk, and a Priest Walk Into a Bar” Brings a Hauntingly Funny Meditation on Grief to Campus

c/o Daniel Gessel

“A Rabbi, A Monk, and a Priest Walk Into a Bar” opened at Russell House on Thursday, April 10, 2025. It was the first production of its three-night run. The play, written and directed by Gabe Barnett ’26 and Jasper Bass-Klausner ’26, explored themes of memory, grief, loyalty, and family, leaving viewers to reflect on the fragility of family dynamics and how to properly honor them. 

These questions come crashing down upon protagonist Bennet (Evan Baum ’28) when he returns home to his father’s empty office shortly after his death and begins to write a eulogy. The first act takes place over a single night with a tongue-tied Bennet, whose determination to profess his loyalty to his father in writing is not enough to get his words out on paper. As the scene progresses, a grand chandelier above the desk flickers on and off, taunting him with an elusive glimmer of inspiration. Does the light have some underlying significance? Could this be his father trying to communicate with him? As the night wears on, Bennet’s mother (Natalie Piergrossi ’28) and pregnant sister Lisa (Emma Moyer ’28) drift in and out of the office to offer their advice. They, much to Bennet’s frustration, do not contribute at all to the eulogy he is trying to write. 

The family’s bickering escalates when Lisa’s husband Nathaniel (Charlie Sandler Manzano ’27) loudly and passionately interrupts the conversation to back up his wife, driving Bennet up a wall and providing the audience’s first glimpse into an ongoing feud. The clash between Bennet and his brother-in-law was a highlight of the production, offering a moment of comedic relief from the play’s dark themes. The later arrival of Bennet’s brother David (Stephen Brainerd ’26), a witty, overly confident, and sarcastic instigator, only fuels Bennet’s smoldering temper, amplifying the humor of the play and creating a charged environment that felt positively explosive. When asked about his directorial vision for this one-room production, Barnett commented on the importance of proximity.

“We wanted the world of the play to feel like a pressure cooker,” Barnett wrote in an email to The Argus. “A place where everything was too close, too familiar, and no one could really leave. The action’s continuous, and the audience is basically sitting in the living room with the characters. I think the vision was less about big stylistic moves and more about containment—like the characters were trapped in memory. Which, in a way, they are.”

The staging did feel claustrophobic—a feeling that was only compounded by the production’s lack of traditional scene breaks. Watching Bennet’s family unravel was intense and felt almost inescapable. Co-director Bass-Klausner spoke to the importance of unbroken pacing in a message to The Argus.

“One aspect of our play that’s unique is that there are no scenes, meaning that both acts one and two run from start to finish,” Bass-Klausner wrote. “Through our use of contained space and real-time, we wanted to align the audience with the feelings of grief and entrapment that the protagonist, Bennet, is feeling in the wake of his father’s death as he works on his eulogy.”

With many resources available to him—including his family, his father’s office, the inexplicable flickering of the chandelier, and a wise Rabbi (Asher Moss ’25) who attempts to help him solve this mystery—Bennet still cannot seem to remember anything about his father worthy of writing about. As the night falls away without a spark of creativity and the chandelier continues to flicker on and off, a stubborn Bennet grows more upset, lashing out at his family members who try to tell him that perhaps he doesn’t need to write a eulogy at all—that perhaps his father doesn’t deserve one. When asked about playing this complicated character, Baum commented on the importance of relatability.

“I felt like I had to strike a balance between making his struggle compelling, to make the audience sympathize with him, and not just be frustrated with him the whole show,” Baum wrote in a message to The Argus. “I wanted people to like me, to care about me, but to be frustrated by me as if they were related to Bennet.”

Act I concludes with an exhilarating fight scene between brothers in an explosion of pressure-cooker tension. Then Act II resumes in the same room on the next morning, the day of the funeral. Still plagued with writer’s block and too stubborn to open himself up to his family’s points of view, Bennet must try to get along with his siblings, who attempt to make peace by trying their hand at jogging his memory. 

“I was most inspired by the dynamic I have with my brother and cousin,” Bass-Klausner wrote. “Bickering, petty arguments sometimes even wanting to claw each other’s eyes out, but at the same time knowing we’re each other’s greatest supporters and in the end of the day knowing we’ll have each other’s backs.”

In their walk down memory lane, it’s not the moments with their father that the siblings recall with warmth, but those they’ve shared between themselves.

A few more pivotal turns in the production—namely, the discovery that their father left Bennet the house—unveil the family’s true dynamic, one that’s difficult for Bennet to accept. Instead, his rose-colored glasses are apparent: He mourns an idealized version of his father, but to the audience, it is clear who his true support network is. Still clinging to a clouded reality, he is unable to receive the love of the people closest to him. 

“When boiled down, family is really what the play is about,” Bass-Klausner wrote.

 Barnett echoed his co-director in a complementary statement.

“I hope people left thinking about what it really means to show up for family,” Barnett wrote. “Like—is love unconditional? Or is it built on a kind of mutual upkeep? Does being there for someone mean forgiving them, understanding them, protecting them… or all of it? The play doesn’t answer that—it just sits in the mess. But I think if there’s a takeaway, it’s this: family might always be there for you, but only if you’re there for them, too. And that ‘being there’ doesn’t mean saying the perfect thing. Sometimes it’s just staying in the room.”

Bea Delaney can be reached at bdelaney@wesleyan.edu.

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