"Birthright" is the summer's hottest play. Also the most controversial.

Is there a provocative button that our guest Jonathan Spector doesn’t like to push? Mind you, this makes him sound like David Mamet or something, which is very much not his style. Jonathan’s play “Eureka Day,” which won the Tony Award for best revival last year, was about the debate around vaccines at a Bay Area school in the middle of a mumps outbreak.Now he’s back with “Birthright,” at MCC Theater through Aug. 23, about six people who met on a birthright trip to Israel (some knew each other before, but the trip was the binding agent for them as a group). The play follows these three women and three men over the course of 18 years, through relationships and jobs, domestic politics and international conflicts — the action ends in 2024 so you can probably guess what figures in the show’s explosive third act.“Birthright” is very much a play of ideas and there’s something highly satisfying about watching a writer stretch them over a big canvas — Teddy Bergman’s production is three hours and 20 minutes. We asked Jonathan about the genesis of “Birthright,” tackling a very fraught subject, writing for an ensemble and a lot more.To wraps things up, Elisabeth brought up the Adult Film company’s “Woyzeck,” which she’d recently seen in Queens (it’s included in this roundup of reviews of Off Off Broadway shows).Thanks to Christian Huygen for our theme music. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit marksvincentelli.substack.com/subscribe