‘Eight Nights’ at Detroit Public Theatre is Holocaust survivor’s story

At its best, theater holds a mirror up to our own lives, exposing deep truths about ourselves and those around us. Detroit Public Theatre’s current production of playwright Jennifer Maisel’s “Eight Nights” goes a step beyond that by asking hard questions about the status of the world around us while honoring faithful traditions.

The play presents eight different nights of Hanukkah in one woman’s life over a period of years from 1949 to 2016. Rebecca, a 19-year-old Holocaust survivor, arrives rather terrified in the United States to begin a new life, but finds she can neither escape nor confront the horrors of her past. Over time, across decades of holiday seasons and candle lighting in the same small apartment, the audience grows with her, through motherhood and beyond, closing with Rebecca in her 80s with her granddaughter helping her out.

It’s a clever concept, handily pulled off by DPT and the one-two punch of Rivka Borek and Sarah Winkler as the younger and older Rebecca. When Winkler steps into the lead role, Borek then portrays Rebecca’s daughter and, eventually, her granddaughter. It’s quite a turn, with Borek carving out three distinctly different characters and drawing every spectrum of emotion from the audience. Winkler is a force of nature in the play’s second half. Her Rebecca grapples into old age with the terror she endured as a girl.