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Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.

The Vineyard Theatre

The Amateurs – Satire! Morality! Mortality! Doves!

03/02/2018

A Medieval troop of deadpan, fourth rate Biblical Players is trying to outrun the plague. Not a bad premise for satire. In fact, author Jordan Harrison manages not only to give us a classic backstage scenario but to address morality, mortality, freedom of thought, God, and women’s issues. Pathos is stylized but questions resonate. Except for a contemporary parenthesis which bifurcates the tale, the script is wry, entertaining, and smarter than it looks at first glance.

The content of said naturalistic parenthesis, acted by Michael Cyril Creighton standing in for Harrison and Quincy Tyler Bernstine as herself should unquestionably have been included in the body of the piece. Not only does the jarring segment harm cohesion, but based on the playwright’s obvious cleverness, it seems lazy. This is not to say you won’t enjoy the show, just that this could be more successfully crafted.

Michael Cyril Creighton

“Noah’s Ark” – replete with the Seven Deadly Sins in terrific comedia dell’arte masks – is being prepared for an Italian festival sponsored by a local Duke. Should the players find favor, they hope to be invited inside city walls to wait out the epidemic.

Larking (Thomas Jay Ryan), the company’s bombastic leader, plays God. Yoeman-like Brom (Kyle Beltran) plays Noah, his wife, notably without a first name, is acted by Hollis (Quincy Tyler Bernstine). Rona (Jennifer Kim) plays Mrs. Shem and later, both Mr. and Mrs. Shem. (Doubling and even tripling up is inventively handled.) Hollis’s brother Henry who dies of plague is later replaced by a traveling Physic/Doctor with a secret (Greg Keller). The only company member not on stage until they’re desperate for an extra body, is set and prop maker Gregory (Michael Cyril Creighton) who provides narrative comments.

Jennifer Kim, Quincy Tyler Bernstine

There are obvious and clandestine relationships, hierarchical arguments, deaths, births and colloquial discussions of ontology. Does the religious play make any difference; does art? When Hollis decides Mrs. Noah might not be so acquiescent, everything tips.

The real time company delivers humor without marking jokes, which is to say admirably as if characters are unaware. Of the cast, Greg Keller is sympathetic and credible and Quincy Tyler Bernstine is a pithy pleasure to watch both as herself and Hollis. Michael Cyril Creighton, a newfound treasure, has impeccable, understated timing worth clocking in any theatrical endeavor.

Greg Keller, Thomas Jay Ryan, Quincy Tyler Bernstine

Director Oliver Butler keeps tone just right whether in 2018 or the 14th Century. Restricted movement and singsong recitation during “Noah” aptly differentiates itself from natural banter afterwards. Several characters could have manifest more distinctive attributes, however.

Jessica Pabst’s homespun Costumes are just right before and after the troop upgrades. Raphael Mishner’s Masks and Puppet Design are splendid. (Wait till you see Noah’s dove.)

Scenic Design by David Zinn is charming, painterly, imaginative. The well appointed, wheeled wagon morphs into a stage with ingenuity and period suggestion, looking fully like an illustration from one’s favorite children’s book. Evocation of animals two by two is marvelous. Nor does Zinn muddy up presentation by giving us a painted scrim.

Listen to Alix Cohen talk about reviewing theater on WAT-CAST.

Photos by Carol Rosegg
Opening: Quincy Tyler Bernstine, Jennifer Kim, above- Thomas Jay Ryan, Kyle Beltram

The Amateurs by Jordan Harrison
Directed by Oliver Butler
Through March 29, 2018
Vineyard Theatre    
108 East 15th Street

Indecent – The true story of a little Jewish play – Marvelous

04/19/2017

In Sholem Asch’s 1907 play, The God of Vengeance (Got fun nekome), a lesbian virgin and a prostitute make love in the rain. Despite accompanying scandal, Europe applauds. In 1923, when, after several U.S. productions, a translated version reaches Broadway, its cast is arrested, then convicted on obscenity charges. The now established Asch, living and working on Staten Island, doesn’t show up to defend the company. Much happened between.

Stage Manager Lemmel (a splendidly empathetic Richard Topol) introduces his thespians and musicians – ingénues, middle aged actors, and those who play the elderly.  Each stands. Ashes pour from their sleeves. (Inspired) “We have a story about a play that changed my life…”

company dance

The Company

We’re all brothers and sing happy songs/We stick together like nobody else does…the company sings in Yiddish.

It’s 1906 Warsaw. Polish/Jewish author Sholem Asch, 1880-1957 (the entirely credible Max Gordon Moore) is excited about reading his play at the writers’ salon of cultural figurehead Y.L. Peretz (Tom Nellis, also in a roster of vibrantly realized roles). Peretz spearheads a renaissance of Yiddish writing, Asch’s mother tongue. The piece is condemned by those gathered for showing Jewish people in poor light. Only a tailor named Lemmel, invited by his cousin, is enthusiastic. “A minion,” Asch comments darkly in response, “is ten Jews in a circle accusing each other of Antisemitism.”

The God of Vengeance features a hypocritically pious, Jewish brothel owner who commissions an expensive Torah scroll intending to marry his daughter off to a yeshiva student to secure respectability. When she falls in love with a prostitute, her furious father throws down the Torah and banishes the girl and her mother to earn their keep “on your backs.”

married

Richard Topol and Adina Verson

In search of creative freedom, Shalom and his wife Mathilde (Adina Verson) move to Berlin as initially depicted here by a Weimar Cabaret act. There the piece is produced in a German version by Max Reinhardt with Rudolph Shildkraut (Nellis) in the lead. “I assume I will be the butch and you the feminine, but how do I play a Jew?” the more experienced actress (Katrina Lenk) reflects. (The other is played by Verson.) We watch as these two discover one another. Lemmel shows up (it’s not clear how) and becomes the production’s stage manager, a position he’ll hold for the rest of his life.

The show tours outside of Poland. We see excerpts with the use of actors freezing while “a blink in time” appears on the translation screen – a method to fast forward. The couple emigrates to New York. Asch pulls strings to insure Lemmel joins them. Peyos (long, hanging sidelocks) are dispensed with. “Even Jews looks like Goys in America,” they sing and dance. Many take English names and endeavor to learn the language. Asch continues to write in Yiddish.

women

Adina Verson and Katrina Lenk; Katrina Lenk and Adina Verson

There are two successful downtown runs. Audiences appreciate the playwright’s ability to bring Jewish themes to secular subjects. A translation that takes liberties to which Lemmel and the cast object, but Asch ignores “why should I bother with a play I wrote when I was in short pants” facilitates a debut at Broadway’s Apollo Theater. (The nature of these makes this plausible.) Arrests follow. Though notable artists volunteer to testify in defense (Eugene O’Neill is shown), the court denies them opportunity.

Angry and disillusioned, Lemmel goes back to Warsaw where he’s incarcerated in the ghetto (and eventually taken to a camp). The “company” add Jewish stars to their threadbare coats and perform one makeshift act of the play each week. This is wrenching. In the meantime, Asch and his wife…

last

Richard Topol, Katrina Verson, Katrina Lenk, Tom Nellis, Stephen Ratazzi, and Mimi Lieber

Paula Vogel and Rebecca Teichman’s deft, provocative production has moved, much intact, from The Vineyard Theatre to The Cort. I hope its new location brings the worthy piece extended audience. I’m Jewish, my companion tonight is not; impact seems equally experienced. Subjects like censorship, religious conservatism, cultural convention, assimilation, and bigotry – here, both Antisemitism and homophobia are universally relevant.

Though it’s passionate, Indecent is not a polemic. The eloquent book is peppered with songs and dances, both traditionally Yiddish (translations appear when necessary, on a screen) and popular English WWII numbers. These can lighten proceedings or darken them with sharp juxtaposition to events. Failings and accomplishment are depicted through specific human characters, not ideas. Indecent (an ambiguous title) is both immensely moving and entertaining.

Asche port

Sholem Asch

Manke (the prostitute)… Because I don’t want to talk any more. Okay? No more talking.Talking’s never a good idea. I wanna dance.
Orthodox Man (her client) Dance?
(She goes to the Victrola, puts on a jaunty Tin Pan Alley tune.)
Manke: There, come on let’s dance. (She pulls him to his feet.)
Orthodox Man: No, no, I can’t.
Manke: What do you mean you can’t?
Orthodox Man: It’s not allowed…
Manke: “Not allowed?” You’ll pay to shtup me but you won’t dance with me?

From The God of Vengeance

The God of Vengeance was translated into multiple languages enjoying a long life abroad. Shalom Asch’s works are many and varied. He eventually wrote in English. In an attempt to show religious similarities, one trilogy examines pointedly Christian subjects. It elicited backlash from both sides.

Also featuring Mimi Lieber and Stephen Rattazzi.

The outstanding cast can act, sing, and dance. Many speak perfect Yiddish. Well integrated onstage, Co-Composers/Music Directors- Lisa Gutkin and Aaron Halva play multiple instruments joined by the equally skilled Matt Darriau.

Emily Rebholtz’s Costumes reflect the time/place/people like archival photos. Choreography by David Dorfman aesthetically captures tradition and context with skill.

Director Rebecca Teichman has illuminated a complicated story in accessible, affecting manner. Intermingling musical numbers with dialogue enhances rather than distracts from both aspects of the production. Use of the translation screen works well. Actors are given space to inhabit their characters.

Forewarned: This is another production of some length ( 1 3/4 hours) without an intermission! (A current fad with which I disagree past 75 minutes.)

Photos by Carol Rosegg
Opening: Shalom Asch-Max Gordon Moore & Lemmel- Richard Topol

Indecent by Paula Vogel
Created by Paula Vogel and Rebecca Taichman
Directed by Rebecca Taichman
Projection Design- Tal Yarden
Cort Theatre
138 West 48th Street