THE SUBSTANCE OF FIRE

With a smoldering intensity, Ron Rifkin entirely inhabits his award-winning role as the troubled, guilt-ridden Holocaust survivor Isaac Geldhart. After his wife has passed away, in the twilight of his successful career as a small-press book publisher, Geldhart is confronted by his three adult children, voiced with easy naturalism and cutting humor by Gretchen Cleevely, Mitchell Hebert, and Stephen F. Schmidt. They don't want to see him bankrupt the company by publishing an expensive scholarly work on Nazi medical experiments, but he refuses to back down. Rifkin's acerbic verbal battles with his social worker, a marvelous Shirley Knight, are an example of the best in modern American theater writing and acting. B.P. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine [Published: SEPTEMBER 2014]