By Joseph McDonough
Enquirer contributor

What would happen if Germany's chancellor woke up from a nightmare and decided to invite 6 million Jews to move to Germany to help atone for the Holocaust? Would Jews return? What problems would arise?

These are the questions posed by playwright Israel Horovitz in his theatrical fantasy Lebensraum ("living space"), being produced by the IF Theatre Collective at the Aronoff Center.

IF Theatre is back after a year's hiatus. New artistic directors Dee Anne Bryll and Ed Cohen have taken the reins from founder Benjamin Mosse (who is off to the MFA directing program at Yale) and have powerfully carried on If's goal of presenting significant but lesser-known works.

As director of Lebensraum, Mr. Cohen does everything right in making this production highly theatrical. He elects to place University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music composer Joel Hoffman on stage playing haunting, improvisational underscoring on a synthesizer.

Also visible is sound designer David Levy providing live sound effects that often add just the right touches to the wonderful set of angled platforms centered by a large cracked mirror, designed by Tim Binzer and all beautifully lit by Peter Kaspzycki with flashes of color and eerie shadow effects.

Foremost, though, Mr. Cohen has assembled and used well a trio of actors who appreciate and project the overarching humanity of the play. Bill Hartnett, Corinne Mohlenhoff and Matthew Pyle have all done standout work on Cincinnati stages, but none has ever been better than in Lebensraum.

Together they portray more than 50 characters as they paint Mr. Horovitz's large canvas of "what ifs."

Many of these characters will stay with you long after you go home: a man finally confronting his dying piano teacher who turned his family over to the Nazis 60 years before; a shy German girl and serious Jewish boy who fall in love; a German dock worker displaced by a new Jewish immigrant; three teachers sadly explaining to their students that the Holocaust was perpetrated by "normal people."

This list goes on as Mr. Horovitz explores not just the force of hatred and the need to remember, but also the power of forgiveness.

Lebensraum is an example of the intellectual depth and emotional grasp that can make live theater an experience like no other. You have only a few more performances to see for yourself, including tonight at 7. Don't miss it.

Lebensraum, through next Sunday, If Theatre Collective, Aronoff Center, 241-7469.

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