Revised ‘Picking Up Stones' at FringePVD

“Providence has emerged as New England’s creative capital,” declared a recent CNN Travel posting, adding that it is “one of the USA’s most impressive cities for people who love the arts.”

Contributing to this impression is FringePVD, a gathering of diverse and largely local performing artists that has – over the past 11 years – become New England’s largest Fringe Festival. This year, more than 150 unjuried, uncensored performances by about 300 artists will be squeezed into two weeks of outside-the-box entertainment for an estimated 10,000 patrons.

FringePVD, which runs from July 14-27, is the result of an early conversation between Josh Short, the artistic director of The Wilbury Theatre Group, and Michael Gennaro, former executive director of Trinity Rep. The two were talking about how some of the most exciting performing artwork wasn’t being seen by the general public because some of the most innovative independent performing artists were operating out of small studio spaces.

Short, whose theater company aims to engage communities through adventurous theater productions, wanted to create a way for artists on the fringe of mainstream storytelling to showcase their original work in a more public and populated forum. He and his FringePVD team have created a vehicle for audience members to attend performances that they wouldn’t normally attend and see things they wouldn’t otherwise see.

One of those performances will be by Sandra Laub, a Pawcatuck, Connecticut, playwright and actor, whose one-woman show “Picking Up Stones: An American Jew Wakes to a Nightmare” reflects a crisis of the heart of a liberal American Jew critical of right-wing Israeli policies and dismayed over Palestinian response.

The artist and her work were featured in the May 2023 issue of Jewish Rhode Island not long after the world premiere of the play – then titled “Picking Up Stones: An American Jew’s Moral Dilemma” – was performed in Woodbridge, Connecticut. The play was inspired by Laub’s visit to Israel in 2014 during Operation Protective Edge, a six-week war in Gaza that resulted in more than 500 casualties. Six months after the play’s debut, Hamas stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 civilians and taking 200 hostages. Israel responded in Gaza, triggering the latest Israel-Hamas war.

Jewish Rhode Island caught up with the playwright to discuss the impact of this event on her work and the presentation of the now-revised play at FringePVD.

JRI: Why “Picking Up Stones” in the play’s title?

Laub: We pick up stones to build the structures that house and protect us. We throw those stones to defend ourselves and attack others. We place those stones at gravesites as a sign of remembrance and grief. And, for me, I love picking up stones at the beach, which serve as markers of what is permanent in life when so much is ephemeral. In the play, the notions of protection, attack, remembrance and permanence are all addressed in light of the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the stones serve as a poetic trope.

JRI: The second part of the title has changed from “An American Jew’s Moral Dilemma” to “An American Jew Wakes to a Nightmare.” Is this the result of recent events?

Laub: Moral issues and the politics that surround them have been greatly impacted by escalated violence. How Israelis, Palestinians and American Jews have responded to this – and the chasm between these responses – has turned into the nightmare now addressed in this play. There is now more of a passionate argument for peace in my play.

JRI: How is that argument made?

Laub: In the form of me arguing with former prime minister of Israel Golda Meir. I ask her if this is what she had in mind when founding the country. And I create fictional conversations between her and others to bring clarity and context to things that are happening now and to add theatrical drama to the play. So, yes, the change in the title reflects changes in this play. 

JRI: Why did you choose a fringe festival as a forum for this play?

Laub: FringePVD reaches a very large audience, many of whom have probably not thought seriously about or taken a position on the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I’d like to change that.

JRI: So, you are throwing stones at the audience, metaphorically.

Laub: I'm throwing stones into a deep pool, causing ripples that might inspire the audience to think, to feel, to wake up to this unique moment in history.

BOB ABELMAN is an award-winning theater critic who formerly wrote for the Austin Chronicle and Cleveland Jewish News.