A Jewish and an ex-Nazi conductor walk into a bar… and inspire an off-Broadway play

NEW YORK — The one time I visited Vienna I had two must-do things on my itinerary. I would not leave the city until I sat for a concert at the Musikverein, nor would I consider the trip a success until I tasted the Sacher-Torte at the Hotel Sacher’s famous Blaue Bar.

The concert was a triumph (Ádám Fischer conducted Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and Mahler’s Symphony No. 5), but the nosh a little less so. We got there a little on the late side — so much for the concept of artists and intellectuals staying up all night over coffee — so we were shunted to one of the less sanctified rooms, whereupon I discovered that the fabled dark chocolate cake sweetened with a thin layer of apricot jam was alarmingly dry. It was as if the French horn section of the Wiener Symphoniker all stood up and blew a flat.

When life lets us down, however, we can turn to art, and that’s where Peter Danish’s new play “Last Call” steps in. It is set at the Blaue Bar (it looks like they got the carpet pattern right), and if the reaction of the performers is to be believed, the dessert is divine.

“Last Call,” currently running at New World Stages in New York City, is a 90-minute daydream Danish cooked up upon learning that, in 1988, not long before each of them passed away, the two most famous orchestra conductors of the 20th century, Herbert von Karajan and Leonard Bernstein, bumped into one another and talked for a while. The two men, by all accounts, were friendly but not exactly friends. Danish’s text exploits the commonly known aspects of their personas — von Karajan the perfectionist, Bernstein the sensualist — and broadens this into a great philosophical debate. You can probably guess which of the two kvells over the torte and who barely touches his.

There’s a bit of a model here. Tom Stoppard’s “Travesties” seized on the fact that James Joyce, Tristan Tzara and V. I. Lenin were all in Zurich at the same time, and Steve Martin’s “Picasso at the Lapin Agile” imagines a meet-up between the famous Spanish artist and Albert Einstein prior to their major breakthroughs. I don’t think “Last Call” will have the lasting impact of those other two works, but by focusing on great interpreters of music it does benefit from the occasional appearance from some great works from the Western canon.

Johannes Brahms, for example, is practically a co-star in the piece. When we first see von Karajan, he’s analyzing a score to the melancholy master’s Symphony No. 1, wondering if there are still mysteries to be found in its contours despite having conducted it well over 100 times. That’s when Bernstein saunters in, and after realizing it would be awkward to not say hello, the two men begin lightly ribbing one another, before picking at old scabs.

Leonard Bernstein, of course, was a proud Jew. If you watch Bradley Cooper’s film “Maestro” you can watch him wave away Serge Koussevitzky’s suggestion that he change his name to something like “Len Burns.” Herbert von Karajan — and there’s really no point in denying this — was a Nazi.

Was he a rah-rah supporter of the Third Reich and did he hate the Jews? I suppose we’ll never know for sure, but there is evidence to suggest that he was one who joined the party strictly so he could maintain his position. His second wife was one quarter Jewish (enough to raise eyebrows) and it is said that Hitler never particularly liked him. His “denazification” process was thorough enough that one can still walk Herbert von Karajan Platz in Vienna — in fact it’s just across from the Hotel Sacher. This is all recounted in “Last Call,” but so is the fact that plenty of other artists fled Europe during World War II while the Salzburg-born von Karajan stayed at the podium of the Staatskapelle Berlin.

Despite Bernstein’s understandable misgivings and von Karajan’s shame (though, he stresses, not guilt) about his past, the two have more than respect for one another. They maintain a type of jealousy. In private moments (the old men frequently must relieve their bladders) Bernstein confesses a desire to be so laser-focused on a score that it reaches transcendence, while von Karajan wishes he could inspire musicians as passionately as the at-times flamboyant Bernstein does regularly.

The play also recounts von Karajan’s first postwar appearance at Carnegie Hall in New York, where he was met by boos. (Reports from the period suggest that the performance itself went swimmingly, but there were demonstrations outside.) As “Last Call” tells it, Bernstein was aware there would be an incident, but did nothing to prevent it. This is meant to be something of a mirror to how von Karajan may have technically been a Nazi, but wasn’t a Nazi in his heart. The moment doesn’t really land.

The current production makes an unexpected move in casting two women in the main roles. German actress Lucca Züchner plays von Karajan and American-born, German-based Helen Schneider plays Bernstein. (The play’s director, Gil Mehmert, is German, while the author, also a composer and critic, hails from Nyack, New York.) A third performer, Victor Peterson, plays a hotel waiter — an anchor for audience members who don’t know their Bruckners from their Bartóks — and also a bit of comic relief as the two men tell old stories. In one imaginative sequence, he transforms into the opera diva Maria Callas, in keeping with the gender-bending nature of the production.

Why are the men played by women? I couldn’t tell you, nor does it matter much. What’s unfortunate about all the lead performances is that director Mehmert has them exaggerating all their mannerisms to the far seats. It wasn’t that I couldn’t buy Schneider playing a man, it’s just that she reminded me more of John Mulaney doing his George St. Geegland character from “Oh, Hello” more than Leonard Bernstein. Züchner stammers and fumfers her way through von Karajan’s dialogue in ways that no actual old man behaves. Both of them are a little irritating.

That considerable criticism aside, this is a good and rich play filled with interesting ideas about art and expression that will make you feel a little smarter after everyone takes their bow. Certainly knowing a bit about Western classical music and its history will help. When the two men talk about changes right around the corner (suggesting the fall of the Berlin Wall) we hear passages from the conclusion of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, which Bernstein would famously conduct as part of his “Ode to Freedom” concert in 1989. But these are merely grace notes. Novices are welcome, as the conflict represented by these two men is universal.

“Last Call” will run at New World Stages in New York City through May 4.

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