Review: "Alexander Klaus, the One-Legged Shoemaker Man" Is a Gift to Audiences

Alexander Klaus, the One-Legged Shoemaker Man

Written and performed by Christian Hege

Directed by Jenny Mercein

Presented by Christian Hege, Epyllionard at 59E59 Theaters

59 East 59th Street, Manhattan, NYC

December 4-22, 2024

Christian Hege in Alexander Klaus, the One-Legged Shoemaker Man. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
The opening of Alexander Klaus, the One-Legged Shoemaker Man presents an image that blends beauty and blood: apple tree petals filling the air as the eponymous character suffers a horrific leg wound during the American Civil War. That sort of duality characterizes the central feeling of this wonderfully crafted play, written and performed - in verse, no less - by Christian Hege. Hege's historical research - and an evocative visit to Lower Manhattan's Tenement Museum - heavily informed the process of creating Alexander Klaus and his story, which he relates to us from his vantage point as an older man, a tale in which loss and struggle feature prominently but in which, at the same time, one's pain can birth others' joy.

Alexander "Sander" Klaus (a name with more than a little suggestive significance), we learn, was a Union soldier (he still sports his kepi as he speaks to us on a stage bare except for a wooden chair and coat rack) who became an amputee at 16. While in the medical tent, he dreams of toys as of things lost, not least a state of innocence; and when he eventually returns home to one parent dead and one gone, he runs away after a time to New York City, arriving in the days before there was a Statue of Liberty to welcome him. Before he emigrates to the big city, though, an incident occurs in which hearing a gunshot causes him to black out, hinting at the PTSD that will continue to dog him for the rest of his life, along with phantom limb pain and debilitating headaches. Hard upon his arrival in New York, Alexander is robbed; but he is then taken to a German saloon by another veteran, a location that becomes central to his life as he finds a vocation (shoe repair) and establishes a household. Over the years, and as his personal life intersects with several recognizable historical events, the memories of war and dreams of battle may wax and wane in frequency and intensity, but they never leave him. Nonetheless, Alexander's fundamental kindness endures, and we find him (like a writer or performer) making something from nothing, and transmuting, not without pain, his distress into others' happiness.
Christian Hege in Alexander Klaus, the One-Legged Shoemaker Man. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
Living in 19th-century New York, Alexander faces some of the same obstacles that New Yorkers still face today, from the challenges of remaining housed and enduring substandard living conditions to clashes with agents of the state, as well as bad investments and banking collapses that were issues as pressing in 2008, say, as they were in the 1870s. More specifically, and as we see as Alexander describes the influx of impoverished, substance-abusing former soldiers into the city after the Civil War ends, veterans then and now are united by a lack of adequate governmental support once they are discharged. Of course, there are also positives to his life in the City that echo those today, whether the solidarity within his German immigrant community or the pleasures of pastries in Little Italy. Hege and his play do a fabulous job of summoning up the environments in which Alexander finds himself, paying attention to the sounds, the smells, the heat of the sun on the skin, the atmosphere as unemployed men mass in Tompkins Square Park a few weeks after Christmas. Hege's captivating performance, delivered so as to reduce the distance between actor and audience, also excels at creating a vivid impression of the characters around Alexander, and subtle details like the way in which he briefly arranges his wooden leg whenever he sits add to the audience's immersion in the story. Experiencing the show feels like time-traveling into a past New York City; and while you might not want to live there, if you did, you'd want to meet Alexander Klaus.

-John R. Ziegler and Leah Richards

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