Georgia Athearn and Richard Atkins

I think they have a winner this year. The play is called DelikateSSen. It was written by the prolific Albuquerque-area (by way of New York) playwright Richard Atkins, with a dramaturgical assist from Mark Medoff, who lives in southern New Mexico. Note the German spelling, and how the SS of "delikateSSen" stands out. You might have already figured out some of what this play is about.

Although created by writers who live in New Mexico, the play has nothing to do with our state and everything to do with New York City and the Second World War. It takes place in 1972 and revolves around Shapiro's Deli, which is owned by David Shapiro and his younger brother Yossi. They both survived the concentration camp at Birkenau thanks to a special arrangement that the commandant had with David. 27 years later, they find themselves in early middle age, not in their native Belarus, but running a kosher deli on 55th Street in Manhattan, not all that successfully.

Apart from the conflicts between David and Yossi and especially those within David himself (persistent PTSD, anger, etc.), the central conflict of the play develops when a German survivor of the war, Klaus Reinhardt, opens a German deli and biergarten directly across the street from them. What are his motives? Can Shapiro's survive? Can David dig up some Nazi dirt on Klaus? Is the war going to be played out again on 55th Street?

The play is quite well plotted, and it doesn't go where I thought it was going to go, so I don't want to reveal much more. A viewer who is more astute than I am might be able to pick up on some early hints as to what will happen in the second act. (One word to look up after you see the play: ammonpulver.) It all fits together tightly, with an extra little kick at the very end.

Atkins writes natural-sounding dialogue, and nothing seems phony or forced except for one scene. The first act concludes with David dreaming of the concentration camp and an interaction there between Yossi and a Nazi officer. I can understand why Atkins would want to punch up the ending of the first act with a loud and horrific scene, since everything up to then has been talk, but it's the wrong dream. It should instead be showing us, maybe even in pantomime, what happened between David and the commandant, which is revealed by David earlier in the play. It would have been better if that were at first just hinted at, and then acted out later, in the dream sequence. That would be even more horrific, and maybe too much for most audiences, but more integral to the play. As it stands now, all we learn from this scene is that Nazis were murderously brutal and that Holocaust survivors are haunted forever, but who didn't know that already?

One technique that Atkins uses works really well. At the play's beginning and end and between scenes, we see projections on the wall. Some are simply time/date/location, but most are quotes, audio and visual, from people famous and not so famous. There are the usual Nazis (Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Eichmann) and the expected Jews (Anne Frank, Primo Levi), but also Churchill and some survivors of the camps. The aphorism most relevant to the play, though, comes from Friedrich Nietzsche: "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." The projections are technically challenging and flawlessly executed. I was told that the credit for them should go to Norm Fletcher, who also did the sound design.

The set (designed by Ju Meng Tan and scenic artist Karin Pitman; built by Rick Hassi, Dale Diamond, Cy Hoffman and Gerald Sandoval; and painted by Linda Leach, Jeremy Jarimillo and Ed Boucher) is terrific. Excellent lighting and special effects are by Stan Olivarez, and the wonderful '70s costumes (the nightmare of bell-bottoms) are by Judi Beuhler and Nancy Planka. However, whoever provided the hippie wig for the character Adam Ginsberg should be sued by the actor forced to wear it (David Bentley). Everything is stage-managed by Linda Leach.

The director is Cheryl Atkins, the wife of Richard, and she has assembled a good cast and excellent crew. She keeps things moving, helped by the projections that occupy our attention during scene changes. Richard Atkins plays David Shapiro, and is rarely off stage. But lest you think this is just a vanity project or nepotism, he is a really good actor.

Most of the rest of the cast is fine, too. Some of the actors have wobbly German and Yiddish accents, but apart from that, are convincing in their roles. I was most impressed by Georgia Athearn, Sharon Sprague, Marteena Bentley, Justin Raper, and Scott Claunch, along with Atkins. I have seen Ray Orley and Eliot Stenzel enough times on stage to expect good work from them always, and they don't disappoint. The German Shepherd, Sarge, is remarkably well-trained.

DelikateSSen is not going to be an easy play for some audience members to watch, even though we are now 70 years post-Holocaust. But that's the whole point: it cannot be forgotten. We have to be reminded every so often of the monstrous things that humans do to each other, so that we do not become monsters ourselves.

Whether this play will go on to further acclaim, I won't try to predict. Success in the arts has as much to do with luck as with merit. There will be another production of DelikateSSen directed by Mark Medoff this fall in South Carolina, but I would say, see the original right here in Albuquerque.

DelikateSSen, a new play by Richard Atkins, is being given its world premiere at the Adobe Theater, 9813 Fourth Street NW (3 blocks north of Alameda) in Albuquerque. Through April 26, 2015. Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30, Sundays at 2:00. Info at www.adobetheater.org or 505-898-9222.

Photo: Ossy Werner

--Dean Yannias