Theater

The Ghost Of Bubby's Past

Dani Shetrit — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:09:00 +0000

Theater

Ted Merwin

Special To The Jewish Week

How deeply do we have to bury the past to keep it from erupting into the present? In Andrew Rothkin’s “Bubby’s Shadow,” in which the playwright also stars, the spirit of a deceased grandmother reunites a deeply divided Jewish family and restores its connection to Judaism. The play, an earlier version of which ran Off Broadway in 2008, returns starting June 3 at a theater in the West Village.

Andrew Rothkin Bubby's Shadow

Kafka’s Rage — Toward His Father

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:07:00 +0000

Theater

Ted Merwin

Special To The Jewish Week

As they reach maturity, children sometimes feel obliged to pour out their resentment and rage toward their parents, whom they blame for the deficiencies of their childhood. In his vituperative “Letter to My Father,” the Czech Jewish writer Franz Kafka excoriates his father for abusing him both physically and psychologically.

Brooklyn franz kafka

The Mame Loshen Has Legs

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 08 May 2012 20:39:00 +0000

Theater

Ted Merwin

Special To The Jewish Week

‘Yiddish is my mother language, and a mother is never really dead,” reflected Isaac Bashevis Singer in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1978. Indeed, the mame loshen continues to play a vital role in the cultural life of the city, as one gathers from two overlapping productions running this month — one a translation of a rarely seen Yiddish play, and the other an evening of Yiddish music and poetry.

Baruch College Mendy Cahan Yiddush Yiddush performances

Kill The Jews — Satirically Speaking

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:25:00 +0000

Theater

Ted Merwin

Special To The Jewish Week

Hannah Arendt was deadly serious when she coined the term “the banality of evil” to refer to the matter-of-factness with which the Nazis committed genocide. But in the hands of playwright Ken Kaissar, the contemplation of the mass murder of the Jews becomes a springboard for outrageous satire. His play, “A Modest Suggestion,” opens next week in Midtown, and it features Jeff Auer, Bob Greenberg, Ethan Hova, Russell Jordan, Jonathan Marballi and Robert W. Smith.

Ken Kaissar play satire theater

The Shoah, Then And Now

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 22:31:00 +0000

Theater

Ted Merwin

Special To The Jewish Week

Even as the Holocaust recedes into the distant past, its effects are as potent as ever. So suggests Rivka Bekerman-Greenberg in her new play, “Eavesdropping on Dreams,” in which a survivor’s toxic trauma is passed along not just to her daughter, but to her granddaughter as well. Produced by the Barefoot Theatre Company, the play is running through mid-May at the Cherry Lane’s Studio Theatre.

Barefoot Theatre Company Holocaust play

Waiting For The Right Holocaust Angle

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:01:00 +0000

Theater

Eric Herschthal

Staff Writer

Noted young German novelist Daniel Kehlmann is finally tackling Jewishness and the Nazis in a new play.

For the past 15 years — which is to say his entire career — the German novelist Daniel Kehlmann, 37, has not written about Jews. In fact, none of his work — from his first novel, published when he was 22 and still in college, to his fifth, titled “Measuring the World” (2006) and Germany’s best-selling novel in more than two decades — even alluded to Nazis or Hitler.

Daniel Kehlmann Holocaust

Last Chance For Compassion?

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 17:32:00 +0000

Theater

Ted Merwin

Special To The Jewish Week

Is it ever too late to love and forgive? For Sadie Nussbaum, the crusty Jewish nonagenarian at the center of Miriam Kulick’s new one-woman show, “Open Hearts,” summoning up compassion may require every last ounce of her emotional strength.

forgiveness Miriam Kulick play Sadie Nussbaum

A ‘Sassy’ Jewish Actress, Cured By Globetrotting

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:07:00 +0000

Theater

Ted Merwin

Special To The Jewish Week

After a teacher told her she didn’t have the talent to succeed, Sivan Hadari, an American-Israeli actress who now lives in New York, traveled the world to free herself of debilitating self-doubt.

Sivan Hadari The Emancipation of a Sassy Jewish Woman theater Times Square Spring Theater Festival

A Cross-Dressing Judith

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:03:00 +0000

Theater

Ted Merwin

Special To The Jewish Week

Charles Busch reinterprets Judith of Bethulia.

She saved her people with an incredible feat of daring and determination. Judith of Bethulia’s seduction and beheading of the Assyrian general Holofernes has inspired paintings, films and countless other works of art. Now comes Charles Busch’s cross-dressing romp, “Judith of Bethulia” at the Theater for the New City, in which the biblical heroine, performed by the playwright, becomes a gleeful combination of Sarah Bernhardt, Mae West and a modern Jewish mother. The 10-member cast includes Jennifer Cody, Jennifer van Dyck, Mary Testa, Billy Wheelan and John Wojda.

Stop, Passover Thieves!

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 18:08:00 +0000

Theater

Ted Merwin

Special To The Jewish Week

Given the exuberance of the Jewish Festival of Freedom, along with its emphasis on transmitting the Jewish heritage to the next generation, perhaps no holiday is better suited than Passover to being turned into a children’s musical.

Passover musical Shlemiel Crooks

LIU Students Revive Play About 1991 Crown Heights Violence

Lisa Shimabukuro — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:58:00 +0000

Theater

Ted Merwin

Special To The Jewish Week

Anna Deavere Smith’s ‘Fire in the Mirror’ staged for a new generation.

She pioneered a new form of theater by imitating dozens of New Yorkers who played roles in the anti-Jewish riots in Crown Heights. In “Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities,” Anna Deavere Smith brilliantly embodied both black and Jewish subjects, from the Rev. Al Sharpton to Lubavitch Rabbi Shea Hecht.

A Holocaust ‘Myth’ That Can’t Be Washed Away

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:19:00 +0000

Theater

Ted Merwin

Special To The Jewish Week

‘The Soap Myth’ pits a survivor’s memory against the historical record.

One of the most horrifying stories to come out of the Holocaust is the one about the Nazis turning Jews into bars of soap. But is it true? In Jeff Cohen’s new play, “The Soap Myth,” which is now in previews Off Broadway, a Holocaust survivor pits his eyewitness version of the truth against historians and museum curators who insist on documentary evidence. The play asks searching questions about how the Holocaust should be remembered and understood in an age in which survivors are dying out and Holocaust deniers spew their own hateful views.

Arnold Mittleman Holocaust The Soap Myth

Too Much Jewish Muscle?

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 22:41:00 +0000

Theater

Ted Merwin

He added muscle, but it stripped him (so to speak) of his self-esteem. That’s the takeaway from Aaron Berg’s solo show, “The Underbelly Diaries,” in which a twenty-something bodybuilder finds himself performing in clubs as a male stripper — a career that led to stints as both a gigolo and male prostitute. In the show, the playwright reflects on a period in his life in which he learned about a seamy side of American society.

Aaron Berg solo shows Underbelly Diaries

A Nun With A Jewish Touch

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 20:49:00 +0000

Theater

Ted Merwin

Special To The Jewish Week

She brought a mystical Jewish strain into her career in the Church and gave comfort to many converts from Judaism who struggled to maintain a connection to Jewish belief and practice. Teresa of Avila, a 16th-century saint whose grandfather was forced to renounce his Jewish identity by the Spanish Inquisition, never lost touch with her Jewish roots. In Begonya Plaza’s new play, “Teresa’s Ecstasy,” starring the playwright, the nun’s Jewish heritage is seen as a driving force in her life and work.

Alberto Carbonell Begonya Plaza Catholicism Cherry Lane Theatre spanish inquisition Spanish Jews Teresa of Avila Teresa’s Ecstasy Will Pomerantz

Win Some, Lose Some At Oscars

Dani Shetrit — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 21:10:00 +0000

Theater

Los Angeles (JTA)

Jewish director Michel Hazanavicius won top honors at the Oscars for “The Artist,” while Israel’s entry in the awards, “Footnote” by Joseph Cedar, lost to an Iranian film.

“The Artist,” a black-and-white homage to Hollywood’s silent film era, won five Oscars — for best picture, director, actor, costume design and original musical score — at the ceremony Sunday.

Academy Awards