Editors’ Note: Actor Michael Raver, who is co-starring in David Gow’s play “Cherry Docs” for the Sarasota Jewish Theatre (where he is also associate artistic director), had an opportunity to interview the playwright, David Gow, and to share thoughts about the experience of working on the topical play. He offered this guest story to ArtsBeat

In a rehearsal room at Sarasota Jewish Theatre, the air feels charged, not with spectacle but with argument. With history. With the kind of questions that do not politely knock before entering a room. In “Cherry Docs,” Canadian playwright David Gow places two men at a table and dares them, and us, to speak plainly about hatred, responsibility, and the law’s uneasy promise of fairness. It is a play of words as weapons, of ideology as inheritance, of silence as complicity. In a cultural moment when extremism no longer hides in the shadows but campaigns in daylight, its questions feel less archival than immediate.

Under the direction of Diane Cepeda, this Sarasota production leans into the fault line between generations in a quietly unsettling way. Cherry Docs concerns a young Jewish lawyer who is assigned to defend a neo-Nazi accused of murdering a South Asian man. The two men are forced into a battle of ideology, identity, and the uneasy obligations of the law. Jim Floyd’s Mike is not a restless young radical (as written in the script) but an older extremist, a man whose hatred has had time to calcify and sharpen into rhetoric that can sound almost reasoned if one does not listen too closely. Opposite him, Michael Raver’s Danny is now a younger attorney appointed to represent him, idealistic, disciplined, and morally alert. The inversion reshapes the power dynamic. The elder carries the ideology; the younger must carry the law, turning their encounters into something more than argument. They become a reckoning over what is taught, what must be unlearned, and who ultimately bears responsibility for breaking the chain.

The inversion reshapes the power dynamic. The elder carries the ideology; the younger must carry the law. What might once have felt like a clash of equals now feels disturbingly paternal, as if prejudice itself were being handed down and challenged in the same breath. The debate becomes not simply ideological but ancestral. What has been taught? What must be unlearned? And who, in the end, is responsible for breaking the chain?

When asked about this production, Gow speaks with both urgency and curiosity about how the play continues to evolve in the hands of new artists. He reflects on the generational shift in casting, on what it means to see Mike portrayed as older and Danny as younger, and on how that recalibration reshapes the moral temperature of the room. He considers the particular resonance of staging the work at Sarasota Jewish Theatre, where questions of antisemitism, civic duty, and communal responsibility are not abstract but deeply felt. What follows is a conversation about the elasticity of a play over time, about the uneasy necessity of defending principles under strain, and about why, decades later, Cherry Docs still refuses to sit quietly in the corner.

MICHAEL RAVER: Cherry Docs has always felt unsettlingly immediate, even decades after its premiere. In today’s political climate, does the play land differently for you now than when you first wrote it?

DAVID GOW: I think the play was a cautionary tale, about where we could be headed when it first premiered in 1998. I think it is now an examination or portrait of where we are, in terms of these fault lines. The violence that the play comes out of is about Nationalism, yes, and also the underpinning of religious extremism, and supremacy.

MR: Sarasota Jewish Theatre’s production casts Mike as an older man and Danny as a younger man. How does that generational shift alter the power dynamic between them? Does it intensify the paternalism embedded in Mike’s defense, or does it complicate Danny’s radicalization in new ways?

DG: Danny is not, in my view, really a radical. He is a firm believer in the function, form and rigor of law, in his role as a defense attorney, which then perhaps slides onto a larger more human canvas of concern for his client's well being. I think playing with the age of these characters is productive in terms of looking at the conflicts in the play, and the generations engaged in such conflicts. An older Mike shows us a part of a generation that feels they have been left behind in terms of comfort, security and a place in the society. I think that is very interesting and lively. In an ongoing production in Buenos Aires, which will also tour Europe, Danny is played by a woman as Daniella. I allow these kind of variations, as they can bring more light to a story in a given moment.

MR: The play hinges on language; on who controls it, who manipulates it, and who weaponizes it. In an era of social media algorithms and online echo chambers, would you say Danny’s rhetoric feels more mainstream, more dangerous, or simply more visible?

DG: I would say Danny's views are in a way, under fire just now. They represent the direction and thrust of law. Mike's actions prior to the play are illegal, but many of his justifications might be seen to be less out of step with some of society than they would have been decades ago. Our concept of right and wrong seems to be under review and it makes the play seem more relevant or the arguments from each man more desperate.

MR: One of the enduring tensions in Cherry Docs is the moral responsibility of a lawyer defending a client whose ideology he finds abhorrent. Has your thinking evolved about that ethical line between professional duty and personal complicity?

DG: The tension is dramatized, but I know from speaking with lawyers working in similar situations, that tension has existed in the courts of the Western World for a long time. I think Danny is trying to defend Mike, and asks Mike to decide if he will use his ideology as a shield or something else. In that way Danny is quite involved, but not quite complicit. He does however get a bit lost here and there, even at one point seeming to offer up aspects of his own ideology as a shield.

MR: When Mike is portrayed as older, does the play become less about ideological sparring and more about generational reckoning?

DG: Perhaps. The ideological sparring is still there. And, even the generational reckoning. What kind of world one generation hands to the next is a really interesting notion, in terms of the play.

MR: The relationship between Mike and Danny often feels almost intimate, like a duel that borders on mentorship, rivalry, even surrogate fatherhood. With this casting choice, does the emotional undercurrent shift in ways that surprise you?

DG: I think I would have to see it live, to really know, though I saw an earlier version online. I do know that the pairing of an older Mike and a younger Danny, landed with some audience members quite powerfully. When you change the casting in a story, even a little, you change the story quite a bit. I think this is a fascinating change.

MR: Cherry Docs refuses to offer easy catharsis. In staging the play today, what do you hope audiences leave wrestling with?

DG: I would hope that audiences and Jewish theatre community members might leave asking, "is this what we are dealing with?" and "are we going to carry on forward this way?" In terms of outrage, empathy, self-examination, I will leave that to the audience, as that is their domain, that of feeling and thought in relation to what they have seen.

Sarasota Jewish Theatre’s production of Cherry Docs runs Apr. 8-19 at the Sarasota Players, 3501 S. Tamiami Trail, Suite 1130, Sarasota. For tickets, sarasotajewishtheatre.com