THE SONDERBERG CASE

Mark Bramhall’s warm, textured voice is a perfect vehicle for this spare, if flawed, meditation on guilt and innocence, parenthood, and the sins of fathers and sons. The technical challenges include Yiddish, German, and various “New Yawk” accents; Bramhall is completely at ease with these. The emotional challenge is something else—conveying the anguish of journalist Yedidyah as he covers the murder trial of a young German, Werner Sonderberg, who pleads “Guilty, and Not Guilty” in the death of his elderly relative. Yedidyah comes to understand that his own life has been more shattered than he ever knew by the tragedy that befell European Jewry during the Holocaust. As Yedidyah pursues the truth about Sonderberg’s case and his own, Bramhall’s sensitive, focused performance serves the text respectfully, and shines. B.G. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2010]