Take a moment to think about your closest and dearest friend. Now imagine that the bond between you had the power to change the world.
It’s been said that Mohandas Gandhi — better know as Mahatma Gandhi — and Hermann Kallenbach shared one of the most profound, transformative friendships of the 20th century. Gandhi would eventually help India win its independence from British rule. Kallenbach was a Lithuania-born Jewish architect.
Many historians credit their relationship with helping to shape Gandhi's philosophy of non-violent resistance.
And now a play making its world premiere at Miami New Drama this week examines that friendship in depth.
The company opens its 10th Anniversary Season with Gandhi and the Jew at the Colony Theatre.
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It was written by New York-based playwright, librettist and performer Harley Elias.
"I have, in some ways, been writing this play my whole life," he says.
Elias calls his family background "a unique mix of Indian-ness and Jewishness."
"My family were Indian Jews of Iraqi descent," he says. "I learned about Gandhi from my grandfather, who was a huge influence on my life. And he sat me on his knee and talked to me about Gandhi."
Elias says he also grew up watching the double VHS box set of Richard Attenborough's 1982 biographical epic Gandhi, in which the role of Kallenbach is fairly condensed.
Gandhi and the Jew begins at the turn of the last century when the two, both young professionals in their 30s, met in South Africa; Gandhi was an idealist young lawyer, Kallenbach, an architect who moved to Johannesburg to build his practice.
Elias says that at this period in their lives, they were "side by side and inseparable."
"They lived together," he says. "Kallenbach is the person that said to Gandhi, 'You should give up your law practice because the people here need you to fight injustice.'"
By all accounts, Kallenbach supported his friend both emotionally and materially, donating an 1,100-acre property which became a communal living space and experimental laboratory for Gandhi's non-violent resistance (Satyagraha) movement.
This is Elias's fifth collaboration with Miami New Drama, which he calls his "artistic home."
"I think Miami in many ways parallels the worlds that Gandhi and his best friend came up in and grew up in, where different community groups were fighting for their dignity and fighting for rights," says Elias.
"Miami is a place that knows exile, that knows communities that are formed in beautiful diasporic ways to find a new utopia here in this place."
IF YOU GO
What: World Premiere of Gandhi and the Jew, written by Harley Elias and directed by Margot Bordelon
Where: Miami New Drama, in Miami Beach
When: November 5 - 29, 2026
For more information: miaminewdrama.org
