Philadelphia Artists’ Collective and Theatre Ariel present Israel Zangwill’s The Melting Pot, adapted by Jesse Bernstein

“New Jersey,” I offered in response. “Los Angeles,” said my companion for the evening. Others verbalized their own answers, from Philly to Colorado to Canada. But Hernandez seemed disbelieving or displeased, and he returned with a more pointed query printed on a sheet of white paper: “Where are you really from?”

The answer for me, I suppose, would be places like Lithuania, Poland, and Ireland, where earlier generations of my family lived before migrating to the United States. The tension between prior lives in the old country and the promise of a new world occupies Israel Zangwill’s play—a hit when it premiered in 1908, but largely forgotten today except for the now-controversial phrase coined by its title. What should we cleave to when we’re forced to reinvent ourselves, and what, if anything, should be left behind?

Old questions, new lens

A streamlined adaptation by Jesse Bernstein, who also directs, refracts these questions through a contemporary lens. He retains the basics of the plot, which follows a young violinist and composer, David Quixano (Adam Galloway), who believes wholeheartedly in what he calls the “crucible” of America: the idea that all people, native-born and immigrant alike, should strive to be one people, bound together without division.

David’s uncle Mendel (Hernandez) and his grandmother, Frau Quixano (Brian McCann), cling more steadfastly to their Russian Jewish customs, although they cannot ignore the different realities brought forth by their new country. A musician himself, Mendel grudgingly works on the sabbath day to ensure the rent gets paid. And despite his rhetoric about assimilation, it becomes clear that David remains haunted by the pogrom he survived in his homeland.

Zangwill presents weighty themes through the lens of melodrama, with a plot that includes a romance between David and Vera Ravendal (Lexi Thammavong), a Russian Christian. To his credit, Bernstein retains the conventions of this genre, and his direction encourages the actors to work in a heightened pitch. A pivotal scene that involves the appearance of Vera’s father, also played by McCann, is notable both for its feverish intensity and its emotional catharsis.

Challenges to be met

The performers meet the challenges of the material, flattening any distance that might keep a contemporary audience at an arm’s length. Galloway presents David’s conception of the melting pot with fervency and vigor, but he also shows the wounded, searching soul who never recovered from the murder of his family at the hands of tsarist thugs. Thammavong expertly conveys Vera’s journey from a subtly prejudiced aristocrat to a passionate pluralist. Hernandez works at his usual high level, and Jessy Gruver is moving and often hilarious as a servant whose bigotry ebbs away as she observes the humanity of her Jewish employers

PAC and Theatre Ariel stage this production at the Arch Street Meeting House, and it doesn’t entirely overcome the challenges of using a nontraditional space. The reverberance of the playing area causes some obscuring of dialogue, particularly when actors have their backs to the audience. (Finn Powers did the sound design.) The playing area has also been reduced to a tiny, curtained area within the building’s main room, which leads to a somewhat static scenic design by Meghan Jones. Die-Cast, which used this space for its 2026 Fringe show Americana Cosplay (here’s my review), had better luck opening out the entire auditorium.

A place in our current conversation

There are aspects to admire about the contemporizing of this material: Becky Wetzel’s costume design, which straddles the divide between contemporary and period, suggests cultural clash. There are also aspects to question: some new dialogue in the final scene feels heavy handed even by the standards of melodrama or didactic theater.

But the two companies, working together for the first time, show that Zangwill’s voice still has a place in the conversation surrounding national identity. More than a century later, people still ask the question at the heart of the play—So, where are you really from?—and people still wonder how they should answer.

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The Melting Pot. By Israel Zangwill. Adapted and directed by Jesse Bernstein. $20-$38.75 plus fees. Through November 8, 2026, at Arch Street Meeting House, 320 Arch Street, Philadelphia. philartistscollective.org or theatreariel.org.