What do you do if your toddler is a god? (To start, hold the Jewish mother jokes.)
In Sarah Ruhlâ??s beautiful and searching new play, â??The Oldest Boy,â? now playing at Lincoln Center Theaterâ??s off-Broadway Mitzi Newhouse Theater, a Catholic-raised, all-American mother is visited by a pair of Buddhist monks, who inform her that her 3-year-old is the reincarnation of a high-ranking Tibetan lama, or spiritual teacher. (So not a god, actually, but still nothing to sneeze at.) A spiritual seeker who is drawn to Buddhist teachings â?? and whose husband is a Tibetan émigré â?? she wants to be respectful of the religion and culture. But as an American mother, she is horrified by the idea of giving up her son to a distant monastery, in India.
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