Arts & Culture | Theater

The ‘Key’ To ‘Kaddish’

09/27/2011 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

He was not a practicing Jew, but Allen Ginsberg’s poetry was deeply religious in its mystical energies, shimmering visions and profound longings for transcendence. Nowhere is this more apparent than in “Kaddish,” Ginsberg’s incantatory, surrealistic elegy for his mother, written in 1959. Now comes “Kaddish (or The Key in the Window)” as a one-man play starring Donnie Mather in a new production in the East Village.

Love And Marriage, Song And Dance

09/20/2011 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

From the rival lovers in “Oklahoma” to the interracial relationships in “South Pacific,” romance has always been a major theme of the Broadway musical. Now come three new productions in the New York Musical Theatre Festival (NYMF) that give a 21st-century Jewish spin to themes of love and sex.

History And Jewish Identity, Times Two

09/13/2011 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

History’s shadows never stop lengthening. Two one-woman shows playing next week in New York explore how historical processes shape modern Jewish identity. Carol Lempert’s “After Anne Frank,” investigates the effect of the Dutch teenager’s story on the performer’s own life, while Gabrielle Maisels’ “Bongani” examines a relationship between a white Jewish girl and the black son of her family housekeeper in post-apartheid South Africa.

Russian Dolls’ Meets ‘A Doll’s House’

09/06/2011 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

Talk about coitus interruptus. In Anna Fishbeyn’s new comedy, “Sex in Mommyville,” a couple struggles to find time in the bedroom while faced with unrelenting demands from whiny children and nosy parents. The show, which is a lusty, unbridled Russian Jewish updating of Henrik Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House,” will be performed this weekend at the Manhattan Repertory Theatre in Midtown.

When Harry Met Eddie

08/30/2011 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

Were it not for Eddie Jacobson, a Jewish haberdasher from Kansas City, the State of Israel might never have come to be. So contends Mark Weston in his play, “Harry & Eddie: The Birth of Israel,” which traces Harry Truman’s decision to recognize the fledgling Jewish state to his long-time friendship with Jacobson. Directed by Bob Spiotto, the play has its premiere Off Broadway next week at St. Luke’s Theater in Midtown. Rick Grossman, Dan Hicks and Lydia Gladstone are all in the cast.

Midlife Crisis, Jewish Style

08/24/2011 | Ted Merwin | Special To The Jewish Week | Theater

In Josh Koenigsberg’s “Herman Kline’s Midlife Crisis,” a successful Jewish trauma doctor at Mount Sinai Hospital (Adam LeFevre) risks his life and career when he brings home a bag of crack cocaine that he has found in a dead patient’s rectum.

Besides Kline, the other characters are the doctor’s wife, Liz (Kathryn Kates); a young premed student and family friend, Lauren (Mary Quick) and Lauren’s boyfriend, Ernie (Bobby Moreno), who is a drug dealer.