Who fights and who remains silent?
Actor/playwright David Rosenberg talks about Putin, fascism, antisemitism and courage

Ostensibly, “Vladimir,” Erika Sheffer’s brilliant, tense, and extremely timely drama now running at Manhattan’s City Center, is about Russia and Putin and dictators and crushing a free press.
Ostensibly.
But as Ms. Sheffer notes in the show’s Playbill, her parents immigrated to America almost 50 years ago after “they survived pogroms, the gulag, state surveillance and relentless anti-Semitism.”
Growing up in the States, however, Ms. Sheffer had certain “expectations about my rights. My vote should count. A fact isn’t negotiable. Injustice is wrong and shouldn’t be called out.”
In short, she made it clear that “Vladimir” isn’t just about Vladimir. Because of her family background, Ms. Sheffer became interested “in the point at which a society finds itself on the brink. Who chooses to fight and who chooses to stay silent.”
The play centers on Raya (Francesca Fardany), who is a fighter. A crusading journalist courting assassination (she survives one poisoning) with her coverage of Russia’s war in Chechnya, she’s also sniffing out another story, a financial fraud. She enlists Yevgeny (David Rosenberg) to ferret out the details.
It is Yevgeny who in my mind is the true hero here. Raya was a fighter from day one. But it is Yevgeny, a simple accountant minding his own business, who builds the courage to fight back.
I say that to Mr. Rosenberg, on Zoom, and he responds: “It’s a real responsibility to play someone like that, because that’s what the play really is about, right? Simple acts by simple people. And having the courage to do something, even something small.”
I ask him if he thinks he’d have Yevgeny’s courage under the same circumstances, and he responds, “I’ve been thinking about that during the run of the play, and I think the answer is I don’t know. But I certainly would not have been able to do it before I did this play. Now that I’ve done it, maybe I’m a little closer.
“I don’t think I have the kind of courage Yevgeny has, not to put my life on the line. I really like to think I would, but who knows?”
It was almost beshert that he landed the part. “Earlier, in the summer, a friend came to me and said, ‘Hey, do you want to work on a scene with me for acting class?’ he said. ‘I just auditioned for this play, “Vladimir,” and I loved it so much I wanted to work on it, even though I didn’t get the part.’
“So she sent me the script, and I was like, oh, this is a really good play. It doesn’t give easy answers, and it’s not one-sided. My reaction was ‘I’m not going to get this part, but I am going to have to see the play and be upset that I didn’t get the part.’ I was out of town and had to audition online.
“I couldn’t believe that I got it and that someone else didn’t get to it first.”
Even before rehearsals, the actors met to discuss the play. “We mostly talk about how this play was relevant on like many different levels, in terms of what is happening in Russia right now and probably 50 other parts of the world at the same time,” Mr. Rosenberg said. “We talked about the creep of fascism and the dissemination of misinformation. We see this happening all over. And the big thing that came up at the table was the possibility of this happening here. And there’s a possibility it’s already happening here.
“I have a line at the end of the play that says it’s incremental, that there are things already happening here that are similar to what happened in the run-up to the seizure of absolute power in Russia. And that’s scary.”
I ask him if he was as impressed with his performance as I was. “This is the absolute pinnacle of my career,” he said. “Without question. It’s an easy answer. I know I’m not Norbert Leo Butz,” the play’s star, “with two Tonys in my pocket.
“But this is the best play I’ve ever done, certainly the best new play I’ve ever done, and it’s the most fun I’ve ever had working on a play. It’s the role that means the most to me.
“It’s been an honor and privilege to work on it.”
Mr. Rosenberg was born in Miami to Stuart, an accountant, and Sara, who was in restaurant marketing. The family celebrated the Jewish holidays, and David went to Hebrew school and became bar mitzvah. “We were observant enough for that, but we’re not expressly religious people,” he said. “In fact, I was perhaps more into it than my parents were for a while.”
He got into acting when his parents divorced “and I needed attention,” Mr. Rosenberg said. “He appeared in a summer camp play — he was the ugly duckling in a performance of “Honk” — and after that experience he decided that “This is for me. It feels good when people laugh for you.”

I suggested this interview and the praise I heaped on him probably felt good, too. “I’ve tried to distance myself from that need,” he replied. “It’s nice to have people tell you that you were good, but I’m trying to get to a place where the work is the reward.”
Mr. Rosenberg majored in theater and political science at NYU and entered the acting program at Juilliard. He’s also written several plays.
“I got into writing because I wasn’t being cast as an actor,” he said. “Also, because I’d written in high school” — two of his one-acts won awards — “and really loved it. But then I went away to college and just got busy. And then I decided I wanted to go back to it. It’s been quite gratifying.”
High on his gratification list is “Wicked Child,” a play he wrote that had its world premiere in Miami last January.
“It’s about how American Jews talk to each other about Israel and how we educate our children about Israel, and the way we understand that part of the world and our relationship to it,” he said.
In “Wicked Child,” Ben leaves a lucrative position as an associate at a large New York law firm to enlist in the IDF, forcing his secular Jewish family to re-examine its position on Israel and its Jewish identity.
“It was an amazing experience and a heartbreaking experience, because we did it in January of this year,” Mr. Rosenberg said. “It was never my intention that it should depict the war. I wrote it seven years before this war began. But it ended up being incredibly tragically resonant. So it gave the community sort of a platform to sit and discuss the conflict in a way that was fair and level and respectful to all sides.
“The play’s point of view is that we should listen to one another. It’s really important to me that the play not advocate a point of view. It should honor everyone involved in the conflict, because there are lives on the line.”
Mr. Rosenberg, who visited Israel as part of his research — his second trip there — “rewrote the play almost entirely” in the period between October 7 and its premiere.
Another change: “My sense of responsibility has certainly heightened,” he said. “If I’m going to write about this, I better get it right and be respectful.”
“Vladimir” tickets are available at manhattantheatreclub.com. (Note that “theatre” is spelled ending in “re.”)
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