I can’t remember when a play last moved me to tears, one so powerful and engrossing that I was completely transported to a different time and place.

Such a play is Barbara Lebow’s “A Shayna Maidel,” a deeply moving story of a family torn apart by the Holocaust and reunited after the war. The JCC production is at the Tri-C East Performing Arts Center through Nov. 4.

Director Fred Sternfeld’s sterling production and mesmerizing cast deliver a theatrical experience that shall remain indelible in memory. There may be no such thing as perfection, but Sternfeld and company come mighty close.

A Shayna Maidel (A Pretty Girl) won the first Dorothy Silver Playwriting Competition in 1980. It was Lebow’s only play to enjoy a successful run off-Broadway (1984-85). It is a portrait in which memory and fantasy serve as a blueprint for the remains of a family decimated by the Shoah.

The main action takes place in Rose Weiss’s apartment in New York City in 1946. Ben Needham’s homey rendition of the adjoining living room, bedroom and dinette is awash in 1940s style, including a wooden floor and door frames, an old-fashioned console radio, and flocked wallpaper.

Rose and her father Mordechai came to Brooklyn in 1929, leaving Rose’s older sister Lusia and her mother behind in Poland because Lusia was sick. Mordechai was saving his money to send for them when the Depression and Hitler intervened.

The opening prologue, bathed in semi-darkness, is set in a Polish shtetl in 1876. A woman is about to give birth. Amidst her cries of labor, the terrifying clamor of approaching Cossacks, galloping horses and shattering glass (Stan Kozak’s surreal sound effects), a baby named Mordechai is born.

The action fast-forwards to Rose’s apartment where Mordechai, now 70, has just informed his daughter her sister Lusia has been found and is coming to America in a matter of weeks. Rose has not seen her sister in 17 years, and despite her protestations that the two are strangers, Mordechai insists that the women will live together.

The play centers on the relationship between Rose and Lusia, the former, assimilated and totally ignorant of her family’s past; the other, emotionally scarred by a different past and angry at the father who failed to save her and her mother, who perished in Auschwitz.

Overanxious and eager to please, Rose at first plies a reluctant Lusia with gifts of clothes and other items. But Lusia, consumed with guilt for having survived, refuses to wear the garments, not even a coat to ward off the cold.

As the two women navigate the difficult emotional terrain that divides them, Rose comes to an understanding of her past and of the sister she never knew.

The narrative is structured around a series of scenes that fluctuate between the present, memory and fantasy, differentiated by Cassandra Goldbach’s dramatic lighting.

In the hands of lesser actors, the subject matter could easily become maudlin. That it never does is owing to Sternfeld’s balanced direction and the restrained performances of a marvelous cast.

Another significant challenge is the language and the different dialects the script demands. There is the Old-World-inflected English of Mordechai; the New York-infused English of Rose, and the broken English of the newly arrived Lusia. In addition, the actors speak Yiddish in the memory scenes, followed by perfect English to indicate they are speaking in their native tongue. There isn’t one false note.

Dialect coach Beth McGee has done yeoman’s work; the well-trained actors do the rest.

Mitchell Fields is outstanding as the imperious and dictatorial Orthodox father Mordechai. Mordechai keeps the past hidden from Rose for reasons that become painfully clear. Bernadette Clemens is excellent as the thoroughly Americanized rebellious Rose.

Lara Mielcarek delivers a virtuoso performance as Lusia Weiss Pechenik. From the moment Lusia first seizes the stage as the frightened émigré clutching a clown doll to her tearful reunion with a husband she has not seen for six years, this amazing young actress is totally captivating. Lusia’s expressiveness is a visual roadmap of fear, sorrow, happiness, anger, even humor in her mock impersonation of her overbearing father.

Clemens and Mielcarek capture the evolving relationship between Rose and Lusia beautifully.

Aimee Kluiber’s costumes don’t skip a detail, right down to the worn out tips of Rose’s cast-off shoes.

The rest of the ensemble is equally first-rate. Jeanne Task is the selfless Mama who refuses an opportunity from a gentile employer to escape to America because she will not leave her adult daughter behind. Natalie Green is Lusia’s childhood friend Hanna, who saves Lusia’s life. Ron Cuirle is Lusia’s husband Duvid Pechenik.

Mordechai has kept a list of all the relatives he left behind in Europe. Lusia has her own list, as well. As Mordechai recites the names like a roll call, Lusia intones, “murdered Auschwitz, murdered Treblinka, murdered Birkenau …” while her father mechanically makes a notation in his pad, as if checking inventory. The lack of emotion makes the scene even more chilling.

There are poignant moments when Rose presses a letter from her mother against her cheek and writes numbers on her arm to identify with her sister. And then there are painful moments such as Lusia’s nightmare when Rose turns up the volume on the radio to drown out her sister’s screams.

The wordless closing montage is both heartbreaking and hopeful.

“A Shayna Maidel” is a play I won’t soon forget. Nor will you.

A Shayna Maidel - That phrase is not only Yiddish for "a pretty girl," it's also the name of a fine play, executed with tender skill by the Mandel Jewish Community Center in association with Tri-C East.

While so many plays concern themselves with the raging dysfunctions of family life, this one reminds us of the horrific damage done to Jewish families during the Holocaust. Two grown sisters are reunited in 1946 Brooklyn; the younger of them, Rose (Bernadette Clemens), had fled the Nazi onslaught with her father, Mordechai (Mitchell B. Fields), while their mother (Jeanne Task) stayed behind with Lusia (Lara Mielcarek).

Playwright Barbara Lebow employs memory flashbacks — involving Lusia, her mother, and her best friend Hanna (Natalie Green) — woven together with inevitably awkward moments, as the two women struggle to discover and understand each other and their domineering dad. Lusia resists many of these overtures, since she is intent on finding her husband Duvid (Ron Cuirle), another refugee from the war.

Director Fred Sternfeld wisely allows this wrenching story to play out deliberately and quietly, finding acute moments of pain — particularly when the father calls out the names of family members, and Lusia, reading from a list she has kept, ticks off their often horrendous fates.

Beautiful Performances in A Shayna Maidel

The Mandel Jewish Community Center of Cleveland's production of "A Shayna Maidel" (Yiddish for "a pretty girl") at Cuyahoga Community College's Eastern Campus features a consistently strong level of performance from its talented ensemble. This is not a play about the Holocaust; it's a play about what came after and how members of one family cope with their losses.

Set in New York City in 1946, the play tells the story of the Weiss family, torn apart by World War II and the family's separation 15 years earlier as patriarch Mordechai Weiss (Mitchell Fields) and daughter Rose (Bernadette Clemens) make their way to Brooklyn to escape Nazi persecution. Left behind in Poland are Rose's sister, Lusia, and mother when Lusia falls ill with scarlet fever.

Fields ably portrays Mordechai as the respectable, hardworking businessman who provides a life for his daughter, trusting in the will of God that he has done the right thing by at least getting one family member out of Poland. Clemens deftly handles her turn as Rose, the dutiful yet modern daughter with a relatively easy life who has no strong memories of the family's struggles. Until her sister Lusia, a survivor of the camps, arrives, Rose seems a typical New Yorker, going to work every day and enjoying her fine standard of living. Fields is effortless as Mordechai, and Clemens is first-rate as Rose.

When Lusia (Lara Mielcarek) comes to stay with her, Rose is awakened from her slumber. She realizes the one left behind could just as easily have been her.

The role of Lusia requires strong bilingual skills, as her daydreams begin in Yiddish, but continue in English for the benefit of the audience. She pines for her husband, Duvid (Ron Cuirle), and mother (Jeanne Task) and misses her childhood friend, Hanna (Natalie Green). Lusia's stories help Rose discover her past and connect with her family in a way she never could before. Mielcarek displays a striking flexibility in the role.

Director Fred Sternfeld has assembled a strong cast with consistently intriguing characters resolved to connect with their friends and family, no matter the distance between them. Set designer Ben Needham created a lovely set with clean lines that allows for smooth flow of action from one area to another.

"A Shayna Maidel" by Barbara Lebow won the first Dorothy Silver Playwriting Competition in 1980 and was first performed at the Halle Theatre in Cleveland Heights in 1982. It went on to critical success off-Broadway and in theaters from Georgia and Connecticut to London.

The play is a fine, tender show and a substantial work, underscoring the importance of family and friends giving us all something to live for.

"A Shayna Maidel," 7:30 p.m. Thursday, 10:30 a.m. Friday, 8 p.m. Saturday, and 2 p.m. Sunday at Cuyahoga Community College Eastern Campus Performing Arts Center, 4250 Richmond Road, Highland Hills. Adults $24, members $21, seniors $22, students $12. (800) 766-6048.