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New musical has a ‘Yiddishen tam’

 
 
 
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Jeff Keller as Marcus Rose, Rachel Kurland as the Rebbetzen, Ben Rauch as Shloyme, Steve Sterner as Benjamin Rose, and Clifton Lewis as the Rebbe in ‘Meester Amerika’ at the Garage Theatre Group photo by Justin Bias

No matter how much time goes by and how far removed American Jews are from the old Second Avenue, we seem never to tire of stories about the Yiddish theater. Maybe it’s the hokum, maybe it’s the extravagant emotions, maybe it’s the reminder of how far we’ve come artistically from those very modest beginnings; whatever the reasons, we can’t resist the old dame. A new valentine to the rouged and bewigged frump is being presented by the Garage Theatre Group at the Becton Theatre on the campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, and like the Yiddish theater itself, the show’s good humor and heart make up for a lack of polish and finesse.

Written by Jennifer Berman, “Meester Amerika” cleverly turns the plot of “The Jazz Singer” inside out and tells the story of handsome Joey Rose, the son of theater owner and manager Marcus (Menasha) Rose, who wants to leave show business and become a cantor. While his father dreams of his son’s crossing over and moving uptown into the big time, Joey longs to daven all day long. To complicate matters, and to keep the show humming along, Joey falls in love with a religious girl whose pious father certainly wouldn’t approve of the family’s theatrical goings-on. And then there’s Aunt Yetta, another member of the family troupe, who lost her beloved fiancé in the war and has been pining ever since. Not to forget Uncle Benjamin, who likes to dress in drag whenever necessary. Several more characters add to the storyline in amusing if fairly predictable ways, and while the show doesn’t surprise, it does entertain.

A musical, “Meester Amerika” combines a tuneful original score by composer Artie Bressler and lyricist Michael Colby with adaptations of familiar Yiddish theater songs, such as “Papirosen.” This heartbreaker is the Yiddish version of “The Little Match Girl” — or maybe it was the other way around. The talented Steve Sterner — a regular with the Folksbiene Yiddish Theater — does the classic Menasha Skulnick bit “It Shouldn’t Happen to a Dog.” And what tribute to Yiddish entertainment would be complete without the heartrending “Rozhinkes mit Mandlen”? Over-the-top sentimentality is a compliment in this world.

The Garage Theatre boasts a professional cast, and most of the performers do a fine job with their roles. They sing, they clown, they even act a little. Where the show falls a bit short is in the direction. “Meester Amerika” is a farce, and so needs a quick, energetic pace, with actors moving briskly and the show spinning like a top. Unfortunately, the pace of “Meester Amerika” is often plodding, which undermines scenes that could be much funnier. In too many instances, actors are standing still, just watching their colleagues say their lines, an effect that gives the show an amateurish feel.

Despite that drawback, “Meester Amerika” is a lot of fun, and the performers are clearly enjoying themselves. David Perlman as Joey, Jeff Keller as Marcus, Melissa Shoenberg as Simma, Joey’s beloved, and Amy London, who plays Yetta, all have fine singing voices, and they deliver the original and adapted material with a Yiddishen tam. You could do a lot worse.

 

More on: New musical has a ‘Yiddishen tam’

 

Local actor plays the lead

 
 
 
 
 
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Just be glad they’re not your mishpocha

The “fourth wall” in theater describes the invisible barrier between the actors and the audience. In “The Boychick Affair — The Bar Mitzvah of Harry Boychick,” writer Amy Lord takes the fourth wall and drives a truck through it.

“The Boychick Affair” is the latest offering from Lord, who starred in the interactive play “Tony and Tina’s Wedding” before creating “Grandma Sylvia’s Funeral” in 1994. This time, Grandma Sylvia’s great-grandson Harry is becoming a bar mitzvah. After a successful two-year run in Los Angeles and a stint in Florida, Lord has brought her madcap creation to New York and everyone — well, almost everyone, according to the program — is invited.

Going to see “The Producers” is fun. Going to “The Boychick Affair” is an experience like no other on Broadway.

 

Vaudeville lives — in Yiddish, yet

Maybe there’s something to all this talk about a resurgence of Yiddish. It seems that there are now two Yiddish theater companies in New York. A scrappy new outfit, the New Yiddish Rep, joins the National Yiddish Theatre—Folksbiene in bringing Yiddish entertainment to the masses. And while there were hardly masses at 45 E. 33rd St. for “The Big Bupkis,” the New Yiddish Rep’s newest production, there was a surprising amount of entertainment.

The star of “The Big Bupkis,” Shane Bertram Baker, may be the new incarnation of Yiddish theater — he’s relatively young, not Jewish, and learned his Yiddish as an adult. A child magician and a participant in the current burlesque revival (what, you didn’t know burlesque was reviving?) Baker is perfectly comfortable on stage and has great comic timing.

 

One-man show celebrates Sholom Aleichem and the Folksbiene

To celebrate its 95th consecutive season, the National Yiddish Theatre-Folksbiene is presenting “Sholom Aleichem: Laughter Through Tears,” a one-man commemoration of the 150th birthday of the beloved Yiddish humorist and writer. That one man — Theodore Bikel, a renowned actor and folksinger long associated with Sholom Aleichem through his portrayal of Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof” — is 85 years old. Watching Bikel stride across the stage for almost two hours, speaking continuously, breaking his monologue only to launch into numerous songs, all these birthdays and milestones are much on the viewer’s mind. How could they not be? It’s an amazing accomplishment for anyone (How do actors remember all those lines?), but it would be dishonest (if a bit ageist) to deny that it’s even more amazing for someone his age. Bikel’s bulk and full white beard make for a commanding stage presence; the words flow easily and he never seems fatigued.

 

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Jewish boxer Daniel Mendoza is subject of play by Times’ ‘Ethicist’

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In the talkback after a performance of his play “The Punishing Blow,” Randy Cohen, who writes The Ethicist column in The New York Times Magazine, acknowledged that it was only after Mel Gibson had his infamous anti-Semitic meltdown that Cohen conceived of a dramatic way to tell a story that fascinated him — the history of 18th-century Jewish boxer Daniel Mendoza. That history is still the most vital part of “The Punishing Blow,” a one-man production by the York Shakespeare Company at the Clurman in New York’s Theatre Row, but the frame that Cohen has contrived adds dimension to the issue of anti-Semitism and its manifestations in the 21st century.

 

“The Boychick Affair” in New York City

 

Yiddish Show in Manhattan

 
 
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