Playwright Aaron Posner probably feels like the chosen one.
After all, he adapted for the stage not one but two of Chaim Potok’s novels, both with the blessing of the late author. First came Potok’s best-known work, “The Chosen,” in 1999. And now “My Name is Asher Lev.”
The latter play will have its West Coast premiere Thursday, Sept. 10 at Marin Theatre Company in Mill Valley. It runs through Oct. 4.
Both plays deal with finding identity — in the case of these two works, Jewish identity — in a world filled with external pressures. In “The Chosen,” the protagonist is the son of a Chassid, a square peg unable to fit in the round hole of Orthodoxy.
That’s basically the story of “My Name is Asher Lev,” as well. The twist: Asher Lev is a gifted painter who needs to express himself on canvas, even if that means painting nudes or haunting the galleries of Paris. That doesn’t go down so well with his loving but strict, and strictly observant, parents.
“It talks about this core difficulty of being born into a family where your passion is in some way in significant opposition to what is wanted from your family,” Posner says.
However, he is quick to add that there are no villains in this or any of Potok’s books. “Everyone wants the best for everyone. Everyone is trying to do their best. These stories have the power to connect deeply with us as human beings, even to change us.”
Posner’s adaptation requires only three actors — one playing Asher Lev, and two taking on all the secondary roles, from Asher’s parents, to the understanding rebbe, to a secular Jewish painter who encourages the prodigy to follow his muse wherever it leads.
The playwright — whose specialty is adapting works of fiction for the stage — contemplated Potok’s novel, published in 1972, for years before tackling it.
“I asked myself all sorts of questions about how this could find its way on the stage,” Posner recalls. “I suddenly saw the way to get at it was very spare, very Asher-focused, to keep a certain focus on him.”
Potok died in 2002, after Posner began work on “My Name is Asher Lev.” But long before, the two had forged a good working relationship. They met by chance at a Philadelphia theater, and in a commendable act of chutzpah, the young playwright asked the master for permission to theatricalize “The Chosen.”
The answer was yes.
Potok “was brilliant, passionate, serious,” Posner says. “He had a big soul and a big mind, a serious sense of purpose. He wrote because he thought he had important things to say. While he was a spectacular novelist, he was not at his core a playwright.”
At his core, Posner is a man of the theater. Growing up in Eugene, Ore., he got involved in theater as a teen, then honed his craft at Northwestern University outside Chicago. He studied with Frank Lotti, a playwright who also specialized in adapting novels for the stage.
Posner went on to co-found the Arden Theatre Company in Philadelphia, where the theatrical version of “Asher Lev” debuted. Posner is currently artistic director of Two River Theater Company in Red Bank, N.J. Other plays of his include adaptations of Mark Twain’s “A Murder, A Mystery, A Marriage,” Ken Kesey’s “Sometimes a Great Notion” and “Who Am I This Time?” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Though his résumé reveals eclectic tastes, Posner valued working on the Potok novels, in part because they gave him a chance to explore his own connections to Judaism.
“It was empowering and fascinating to find that I strongly identified with classic Jewish values,” he says. “I am no more religious than I was 10 years ago, but I understand more about Jewish history. I have a lot more affection and appreciation for the beauty of Judaism as a philosophy and tradition.”
As much as Posner values the role of theatrical storyteller, clearly there’s something in it for him every time he sets out to adapt a novel.
“As a theater person,” he says, “I get to wonder about myself out loud through my work.
“My Name is Asher Lev” plays Sept. 10-Oct. 4 at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley. For tickets and information, (415) 388-5200 or marintheatre.org.