The Gathering

Royce Gallery
2901 Mariposa St. San Francisco

In 1985, then-president Ronald Reagan made a controversial visit to a Nazi cemetery in the German town of Bitburg to commemorate the end of World War II 40 years earlier. The visit caused widespread furor around the world, but The Gathering zeroes in on the furor those actions caused within one family, almost tearing them apart at the seams. The task of bridging longstanding generational conflicts and preserving the family unity is left to young Michael, on the eve of his Bar Mitzvah. The Gathering was first produced off-Broadway starring Theodor Bikel and Jesse Eisenberg, and opened on Broadway in 2001, starring Hal Linden. See it now at Royce Gallery in San Francisco.