As metaphors go, it’s hard to beat a pair of shoes. That’s the main lesson im parted by “The Shoemaker,” in which the title character attempts to fix a woman’s broken soul — sorry, sole — in a 9/11 drama that throws in the Holocaust for good measure.
Susan Charlotte’s play has already seen life as both a one-act and a 2007 film (“A Broken Sole”), a new version of which is due this fall. Her commitment to her work is admirable, but it’s beating a dead horse.
Danny Aiello stars as Guiseppe, a Jewish/Italian cobbler who’s closed his Hell’s Kitchen shop the day of the 9/11 attacks. In bursts a distraught woman, Hilary (Alma Cuervo), who’s just walked all the way from downtown. She needs her shoe repaired but, too distraught to work, he refuses. Soon they’re engaged in a soul-baring conversation ranging from the plot of the film “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis” to the fate of Guiseppe’s relatives, who were killed by the Nazis.
The main thing on Guiseppe’s mind is a pair of pumps belonging to Louise (Lucy DeVito), a charming young investment banker who works in the Twin Towers. He’s sure she won’t return for them.
“There’s no chance,” the despairing shoemaker says. “There’s always a chance,” Hilary replies.
Aiello’s earnest but overwrought performance only accentuates the contrivances of his character, who frequently engages in anguished conversations with his dead father (voiced by Michael Twaine). By the time he recites a lengthy monologue that includes a portion of the Passover Seder, “The Shoemaker” is beyond repair.