Ari’el Stachel spent much of his life hiding his identity. The son of an Israeli-born Yemenite Jewish father and an Ashkenazi mother, his brown skin, curly hair and hard-to-pronounce last name — his father’s — Yeshayahu, made him feel like an outsider. Whether in a suburban public school, a private Jewish day school, an urban middle school, or a performing arts high school, Stachel never felt comfortable in his skin. In fact, he switched schools so many times because of his brown skin and outsider status.
Today he’s a Tony Award-winning actor, but his journey to that point was fraught and arduous. Stachel’s personal narrative and hidden demons have now become his one-man monodrama. “Out of Character” follows young Stachel as he discovers he’s different because of his skin color, his father’s Yemenite ancestry and heavy accent, and his near-debilitating anxiety and obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
This joint Theater J and Mosaic Theater production, which originated at Berkeley Rep in California, is on stage at the Goldman Theater of the Edlavitch DCJCC through Jan. 26. It opens with the scene recounting Stachel’s behind-the-scenes experience at the 2018 Tony Awards, when he received the best featured actor award. He keeps ducking into the men’s room to wipe the sweat off his forehead. By way of introduction at the play’s start, in fact, Stachel turns to the audience, admitting, like a 12-step confessional: “I’m an anxious person … and I’m going to sweat my ass off during the show.”
In “Out of Character,” Stachel does, indeed, sweat, as he lays bare his identity crisis and his anxiety disorder in a tour de force performance. Clad in a basic black T-shirt and gray slacks, Stachel traces his origin story from his early-onset anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder to his growing realization that his brown skin and his father’s heavy Hebrew accent made him feel like he didn’t belong in the Berkeley and Oakland, California, neighborhoods he grew up in. The aftermath of 9/11 didn’t help; some friends and classmates claimed his dad looked like Osama bin Laden.
It took decades for Stachel to lean into his multihyphenate identity. The actor didn’t fully finally find his voice on stage as a person of color until he was fortuitously cast in the Broadway production of “The Band’s Visit.” He played an Egyptian musician, for which he received the 2018 Tony Award for featured actor.
A compelling storyteller, he has a knack for multiple voices and accents and leans into the physicality of each character, from his Israeli folk-dancing dad to his basketball buddy Robert, with easeful grace and the melodious Black vernacular slang he heard on the basketball court.
Under Tony Taccone’s direction and mentorship, Stachel has whittled down and refined his lifetime of experiences into a sharply focused 80 minutes. He peels back the curtain on the challenges of living with anxiety that have plagued him since childhood. His mother took him to his first therapist at five and he grew adept at hiding the idiosyncrasies of his OCD, which involves some fears of eating and need to touch certain things.
But as an adult, those issues paled in comparison to his propensity to sweat profusely when anxious. A performer’s job is to never let them see you sweat, whether on stage, in a film, or in an audition or rehearsal. Stachel obsesses about what he called his “flop sweat,” even ordering spicy foods when out with friends to blame the hot peppers for his hyperhidrosis — excessive sweating in layperson’s terms.
Seven years in the making, “Out of Character” lets Stachel exorcise some of his demons in public confessional fashion. The actor harnesses his nervous energy and high-octane physicality on Afsoon Pajoufar’s bare, but not colorless, stage. The backdrop initially resembles a giant red envelope. With just a few props, plus projection and lighting design by Alexander V. Nichols, joined by sound design from Madeleine Oldham, Stachel’s memorable Tony Award moment is vividly re-created by color, light and sound, as are a drab men’s room, a basketball court, a school hallway, and a café. All materialize through the sparest strokes of colored light and shadow enhanced by ambient sound captures.
In these unsettled times, depression, anxiety, isolation, and loneliness have become the new pandemic. “Out of Character” shares an increasingly common narrative: the challenges — and small victories — of living with and through anxiety disorders. Stachel’s autobiographical account feels as Jewish as the Israelites’ journey from slavery to freedom.
His brave and scintillating portrait of a life controlled by inner demons is one that will connect across generations and cultural identities.
“Out of Character” written and performed by Ari’el Stachel, through Jan. 26, 2025, at Theater J, 1529 16th St. NW, Washington, D.C. Call 202-777-3210 or visit edcjcc.org/theater-j/show/out-of-character.
Lisa Traiger is Washington Jewish Week’s arts correspondent.
