Arts & Culture | Theater

A Holocaust-Themed ‘Dybbuk’

08/04/2010 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

It happened more than six decades ago, but the Shoah still haunts and possesses us. In British playwright and director Julia Pascal’s Holocaust-themed reworking of S. Anski’s surrealistic play, “The Dybbuk,” to be presented beginning next week by the Theater for the New City, the overtaking of a girl’s body by the spirit of her dead lover assumes new echoes and reverberations in the wake of the destruction of the Jews of Europe.

Concert’ Juggles Too Much

07/20/2010 | George Robinson | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

Radu Mihaileanu has set himself an increasingly difficult task.

Putting God On The Couch

07/20/2010 | Ted Merwin | Theater

He called himself a “godless Jew” and spent much of his career trying to demonstrate that religion is an illusion, and religious belief a neurosis. Did Sigmund Freud ever question his own atheism?

Modern (Orthodox) Romance Hits New York Stage

07/13/2010 | Ted Merwin | Special to the Jewish Week | Theater

Differences in levels of religious observance between Jewish partners in a relationship often cause tensions and hurt feelings. But in Amy Holson-Schwartz’s new play, “Can I Really Date a Guy Who Wears a Yarmulke?” starting this weekend at the Midtown International Theatre Festival, these differences become the subject of romantic comedy. Directed by Jay Falzone, the play has been described as “Scrubs” meets “How I Met Your Mother,” with a Jewish twist.

‘Can You Talk Like That With A Yarmulke On?’

06/29/2010 | Amy Spiro | Editorial Intern | Theater

Jokes about JDate, Hebrew school, tefillin and “making aliyah to Florida” abounded at the 11th Annual Funniest Jewish Comedian Contest Monday night.

More than 100 people packed the basement of the Broadway Comedy Club on the West Side for The Jewish Week-sponsored event, produced by actor and comedian Geoff Kole.

Pacino’s Ounce Of Flesh

06/29/2010 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

He has been played for laughs and played for chills, but the soon-to-be homeless Shylock who has taken up residence in Central Park in the Public Theater’s new production of “The Merchant of Venice,” directed by Daniel Sullivan, is played purely for pity. That it is Al Pacino, of all actors, who fails to give the Jewish moneylender a menacing edge, is surprising beyond measure.