My Name is Asher Lev, put on by the Lyric Stage Company of Boston, is a story about hardship, grief, exhilaration, art and finding one's identity in his own community. Following the trials and artistic growth of a Hasidic boy who grew up in a very traditional Jewish household, My Name is Asher Lev presents a dramatic and enthralling narrative about the sometimes contradictory dimensions of a person's life in a sympathetic and meaningful light. Asher's struggle is one that is relatable to many who dare to become a part of the world of art that he tries to enter. JustArts had the chance to speak with Scott Edmiston, director of My Name is Asher Lev and director of the Office of the Arts at Brandeis. When asked what attracted him to this particular play, he revealed his very intimate relationship with the story and themes of Asher Lev.

"I understood what the play says about being different from the culture or family you were born into. As the title suggests, it's a story about identity. From an early age, my awareness of being a creative person often made me feel like an outsider," Edmiston wrote. "My dad wanted a son who would be a Pittsburgh Steeler, and instead I wanted to draw and make theater. My dreams and his dreams for me were very different. . To whom do you have the greatest responsibility? I found inspiration in [Asher]'s courage to be who he is-to own his name."

The muse for Aaron Posner's script of My Name is Asher Lev was Chaim Potok's highly autobiographical novel of the same title. Asher, who from a very young age shows considerable artistic talent in his drawings and sketches, begins to grate at his father's nerves when he spends time drawing rather than studying. His father is strictly against fostering Asher's artistic abilities and voices this opinion quite frequently. His mother is more sympathetic to her budding artist son, though she is torn between her religion and husband and her love for Asher.

As the plot begins to thicken, its complicated emotional layers building like repeated paint strokes, we see the painful struggles that plague Asher's attempt to chase his dreams. In the end, he makes the decision to be true to himself, and the play concludes on a melancholic but hopeful chord.

A curious audience member who is not familiar with Hasidic tradition may be concerned about the culture that drives the events of this story. On this, Edmiston said, "I find that audiences have enough general knowledge about Hasidism that they understand the circumstances. Some of the Yiddish words may be unfamiliar, but the acting makes the situation clear and recognizable, like with Shakespeare. I also think some mystery is enjoyable in a play and in art in general. . My friend Sylvia Fuks-Fried in the Tauber Institute at Brandeis gave me lots of advice and insights. And Zohar Fuller '10, who was my assistant, helped make sure that we were accurate in our depictions and pronunciations."

The play featured only three actors, but they composed a fantastic lineup of characters. Each actor slipped into another character's skin on the turn of a dime but incredibly, not one of them felt contrived. Portraying Asher at all stages of his life-from a child barely out of toddlerhood to a fully mature adult-was the irrepressible Jason Shuchman. His high energy and ability to shift from innocent child to impassioned artist to candid narrator was the thread that tied all of the 30 disparate scenes and characters together. Anne Gottlieb, the sole female actor and a resident scholar in Collaborative Theatre at the Women's Studies Research Center at Brandeis, also flip-flopped between several characters in the show. However, it was her portrayal of Asher's mother that drew the most sympathy and even a couple of tears from members of the audience. Finally there was Joel Colodner, who played the series of older male characters in the show-most memorably Asher's father, Rivkeh Lev, and Asher's mentor, Jacob Kahn. He was veritably chameleonic in his portrayal of all his characters, shifting from stern father to forthright mentor to jovial uncle as effortlessly as one might change his or her clothes.

In addition to a moving and believable cast, the play presented inventive and visually striking methods of staging. Using lights and shadows outside of the traditional space, picture frames that rappel down from the ceiling and approximately 42 musical compositions punctuate each scene, the play itself became a series of artistic images.

Scene after scene, brought moments of incredible aesthetic beauty and poignancy. However, the staging and the nature of the venue occasionally clashed. The majority of the visuals were aimed toward the center section of the audience, even though there were two other sections oriented so that they were looking directly at the right and left sides of the stage. The patrons sitting on either side didn't get the full effect of the intended image.

Slight instances of visual awkwardness aside, My Name is Asher Lev presents an experience that is both visually stunning and emotionally profound. The themes at the crux of this play are universal: the search for personal identity, the struggle between desire and filial responsibility and the accepting of costs that accompany spiritual growth. These themes are familiar to many who attempt to chase their dreams. But why are they so resonant with us? Edmiston's poignant thought sums up the answer to this question.

"One of the things Asher comes to learn is that great art is often achieved at a personal cost," Edmiston said. "It can be both a blessing and a curse to be someone with vision, who dares to tell the truth. Asher calls his gift 'demonic and divine. ... It is how I bring balance to the world.' I guess you could say that directing plays is that for me. It's my way of bringing balance to the world.