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Yichud (Seclusion)

• Written by Julie Tepperman
• Directed by Aaron Willis
• Starring Diane Flacks, Richard Greenblatt
• At Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto

Times are tough, so it's not entirely surprising to think that Theatre Passe Muraille is moonlighting as an Orthodox Jewish synagogue and renting itself out for weddings.

Drop by on any given night and you'll find a big Star of David over the entrance and baby pictures of the bride and groom on display next to a guest book in the lobby. Upstairs, men in beards and big black hats will be boisterously singing along to Hava Nagila, while modestly dressed women do the Hora down in the stage area.

It's an inclusive atmosphere, however, and even the most goyish visitors may quickly find themselves in a circle dance with the wedding party.

But no, this is not an example of creative recessionary diversification by Theatre Passe Muraille: It's the energetic, immersive “pre-show” for Julie Tepperman's new play Yichud (Seclusion), impressively designed by Beth Kates.

When it’s curtain time, the audience/guests are sent to their seats and the play/ceremony begins.

Modern-minded Rachel is betrothed to the anxious, asthmatic Chaim, with whom she has been on exactly four dates – all arranged and supervised. Rachel and Chaim are played by playwright Tepperman and director Aaron Willis, who are married in real life, and Jewish too, albeit of the traditional-egalitarian stripe.

Down the reception line are Rachel's parents, hat salesman Mordechai and housewife Malka, who are secretly on the brink of divorce but have been keeping up appearances until the last of their four daughters is wed. They're played by Richard Greenblatt and Diane Flacks, who have a real-life partnership as well, as co-creators and performers of the hit Tarragon shows Sibs and Care.

Representing the groom's side of the family, we have Chaim's brothers, Ephraim, visiting from Brooklyn, and Menachem, who never left Thornhill. They're both Jewish scholars who teach and study at Orthodox Jewish schools, and they’re intensely competitive. They're played by Jordan Pettle and Michael Rubenfeld, who as far as I know have no off-stage relationship, but nonetheless have great theatrical chemistry.

We're introduced to this sextet in a lengthy prelude to the meat of Tepperman's play: three two-character scenes that take place concurrently, but are seen in sequence.

After the ceremony, Rachel and Chaim are locked in the Yichud Room, a place where an Orthodox Jewish bride and groom go to break their fast and spend their first moments alone together. What else happens in the room is a mystery – but the play promises us a peek.

While the newlyweds are in seclusion, Mordechai makes a last-ditch attempt to reconnect with Malka, promising her that he'll become a better, more giving lover and reciting tips he's learned by trawling “Ortho-sex” blogs.

At the same time, the poised Ephraim and drunken Menachem, posted as guards outside the Yichud room, dig into their personal issues. Ephraim has got in trouble at his school for trying to get an expelled homosexual student reinstated, while Menachem is courting trouble by handing out sex advice to modern Orthodox teenagers via Facebook.

In its best moments, Yichud (Seclusion) offers us a portrait of a conservative community adapting their traditions to a modern, sexualized world of iPhones and blogs. There are a few tantalizingly complex ethical conundrums for a non-Orthodox audience to wrap its head around. Ephraim earns our sympathy for wanting to keep the gay student in his school, until we learn it is in order to “cure” him.

Meanwhile, while we start instinctively on the side of the neglected Malka, things get complicated when we realize that she's the sexually close-minded one, and that much of her anger at her husband stems from him letting Rachel go to university.

Alas, Tepperman mostly goes for comedy and often at the expense of credibility. There are a number of shocking or funny one-liners that are then quickly contradicted, coherence sacrificed for laughs. And when the script tries to get serious, it splutters. The characters see-saw between being observantly Orthodox and sounding like they're in a Judd Apatow movie, with lines that are saltier than a bowl full of pretzels.

The final scene in the Yichud room is the strongest. It has its outrageous moments, but ultimately it is sweet and the performances are too. This scene, however, is the one in which the character's sensibilities are most in line with those of its liberal creators. It's a little too easy to applaud Rachel and Chaim's progressive partnership.

The festive nature of the pre-show and the relentless energy of the group scenes generates a lot of goodwill that carries over to the play's weaker moments. Still, I would have preferred a play that really cracked the door of the Orthodox Jewish community and let me see what was going on instead of one that projects the secular world's concerns and attitudes onto it.

Yichud (Seclusion) runs until Feb. 27.