Birthright ★★★★★

The next time it’s announced that Eli Gelb has been cast in an ensemble-driven drama running more than three hours, go ahead and book your tickets. Odds are, you’re in for a winner.

Gelb, so terrific in David Adjmi’s brilliant Stereophonic as Grover, the sound engineer whose outsider status makes him unforgettable, is giving another excellent performance in Jonathan Spector’s ambitious and expansive new play, Birthright, at MCC Theater.

Here Gelb plays Noah, a blogger who initially feels like he’s not quite fitting into his new group of friends, a gang of six post-college grads — three men, three women — who’ve recently met on Birthright, the all-expenses-paid trip to Israel for Jews ages 18 to 26. And just as it was in Stereophonic, Gelb is one in a uniformly superb septet: Hale Appleman, Molly Bernard, Liz Larsen (as one of the grads’ mothers), Nate Mann, Molly Ranson, and Zoë Winters. The result is an engagingly complex play that’s both relatable and timely, an early standout in this new theatrical season.

Birthright takes place in the sunken living room of a comfortable home in suburban Virginia, but interpersonal philosophical discomforts are never far beneath the surface, and tempers often rise to the temperature of the hot tub that’s featured prominently whether onstage or off (scenic designer Scott Pask has once again worked his magic). That hot tub also creates two clothing-begone scenarios that require this to be another Pouch Play; cell phones are locked up for the show’s duration, the better for audience members to discuss the show’s dramatics during the production’s two intermissions.

The play’s structure makes the production feel epic: it takes place in three parts set 18 years apart — 2006, 2016, and 2024 — and though the play is often political — how could it not be? — Spector and director Teddy Bergman keep the focus on these six friends, how national and world events affect them personally, and the ways they see their religion and the world around them. As a result, Birthright always feels more personal than polemic and is the richer for it, grounded by the humanity of the performances, with special mention due to Bernard and Winters, who are given the lion’s share of the hardest and most heartbreaking material. You ache for them and their friendship as forces beyond their control divide them.

In addition, there’s no shortage of humor to keep the drama from ever getting overly heavy, including David Bengali’s fantastic projection designs that enable the audience to see how the group has kept in touch via social media and text groups between their in-person gatherings. Bengali also did the projections for Spector’s Tony-winning Eureka Day, which resulted in one of the funniest scenes Broadway’s seen in a decade; this playwright/designer team knows how to pack a punch.