By DORIS RUBENSTEIN
What would you expect of four smart Jewish women getting together informally at a lake home up north these days? Today, I’d expect these members of Hadassah to be tucking in to some decaf coffee, excellent cookies and a long session with a mah-jongg set.
Flash back to the early 1940s: World War II is raging elsewhere, but four Jewish women and a couple of non-Jewish kibitzers are holed up in a country home in the French Alps. What would they be doing? What might their conversation be like? Hint: It’s not mahj.
These four Jewish women happen to be some of the finest minds and wittiest writers in Western civilization: Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas; their non-Jewish companions are none other than Agatha Christie and a surprise guest “invited” by Stein. Each of these women is a force of nature, and together at this imagined dinner party they merge into a tornado of ideas and words.
Little Wars is a play leaping from the imagination of Steven Carl McCasland, a self-described multi-hyphenate. Aside from being a playwright, he is also a vocal and acting coach, pianist, director and producer dedicated to telling the stories of remarkable women and their contributions throughout history.
In this play, he asks the audience some difficult questions: What is a single life worth, and what would you do to save it? What if it were a complete stranger? Whatever one might imagine, the audience here can expect a powerful exploration of complex themes, pushing boundaries and challenging societal norms. It is important to note that this play includes mature content, specifically, frank discussions about graphic sexual violence against women.
“I hope that audiences walk away from the play with not only an interest in these remarkable women, but reinvigorated to speak out against the rising antisemitism, xenophobia and bigoted rhetoric spreading round the world. I hope that in my play you find laughter and fear, joy and sadness, and a passion to spread kindness,” McCasland wrote ahead of a 2023 production of the play. Audience members at this month’s Minneapolis production will have a chance to meet him at the theater.
Featured in the role of playwright Lillian Hellman is the Twin Cities veteran Jewish actor Meri Golden. The complete list of her stage appearances is too long to include in this article, but suffice to mention just a few of the stages she’s graced since arriving in Minnesota in 1971 are Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company/Six Points Theater, Mixed Blood Theatre, Park Square Theatre and Theatre in the Round.
“What can you say? She’s a very talented character!” Golden said about Hellman. “She’s got a biting tongue and a kind of arrogance. She’s got a deep sense of morality. She really stood up to Senator Joe McCarthy during the Red Scare in Hollywood and the arts in the 1950s, which was quite a challenge for her since she truly had a strong sense of self-control, which I observed watching old interviews she gave on television talk shows. But she appears more outgoing in this play than she was in real life.”
This production originated at the Northfield Arts Guild Theater, and most of the other players are from that area of Minnesota. The co-producer is Out of the Mist Celtic Theatre. Little Wars is directed by Susan Dunhaupt, a therapist who certainly is qualified to bring out the personalities of these famous women of the past.
Golden agreed with others that recent political events in the U.S. and particularly in Minnesota have a great deal in common with the show’s contents, making Little Wars an important stop for fans of serious theater. The Guardian wrote of Little Wars: “The discussions about collective responsibility, individual action or inaction in the face of moral wrongdoing, and the question of whether to stay silent or speak out, are deeply resonant.”
All proceeds from this production will be donated to the Immigrant Law Center; to maximize the donation, the publisher is not charging royalties. While it might be a stretch to imagine these Jewish women together in the Alps, such a Jewish play is being performed in a pretty non-Jewish venue as well.
You can catch it at the Glanton Theater in the basement of Calvary Baptist Church at the corner of Blaisdell and 26th Street in Minneapolis. The curtain rises at 7:30 p.m. for just one weekend: April 24, 25 and 26.
(American Jewish World, April 2026)
