Singer and performer Mike Burstyn — known internationally for his roles on stage, in films and on television — stars in the 40th-anniversary celebration of the groundbreaking works of Yiddish theater, \”The Megillah of Itzak Manger\” \’s premiere in Israel.
\”Herb is this wonderful combination of New York savvy, old school wisdom and outrageous life experiences,\” Kaminoff says. \”Imagine Garrison Keillor, only if he was a handsome Jewish guy from Brooklyn.\”
Arabian rugs and pillows are spread out in a tent as Holofernes, the general of the Assyrians, plots his victory over the Israelites. Wearing a tunic, he speaks lines of great beauty: \”I am overcome with wonder, trembling with a terrible infatuation.\” He is speaking of war, yet he might be anticipating the woman who will take him to bed later in the evening.That woman, the eponymous star of \”Judith: A Parting From the Body,\” resuming its run at the Theater of NOTE on Nov. 30, is the Jewish heroine known to readers of the Apocrypha.
Wendy Graf was at the women\’s group at her synagogue when she discovered that a number of her colleagues were the children of Holocaust survivors. She became fascinated with the repercussions of the tragedy on their lives, but put aside the subject as she wrote \”Lessons,\” a play about a widower who decides to have a bar mitzvah. More recently, a person close to her developed Alzheimer\’s disease. The synchronicity of memory loss with so-called \”second-generation\” syndrome provided the raw material for Graf\’s new play, \”Leipzig,\” the latest offering of the West Coast Jewish Theater, now playing at the Marilyn Monroe Theatre at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.
Mixing punk rock and opera may be about as heretical as it gets, yet that is precisely what Julien Nitzberg, librettist and lyricist of \”The Beastly Bombing,\” has done.
Initial reservations about staging a play about Auschwitz\’s Sonderkommando, Jews who cleaned the gas chambers and crematoria in exchange for a few extra months of life.
\”Paper Dolls\” is initially structured to resemble a standard-issue triumph-of-the-outsider tale, with the group auditioning for a performance slot at a legendary Tel Aviv nightclub — and succeeding. But dreams prove illusive; the group\’s lone club performance is disastrous, and the performers are not invited back.
My dad loved my act. He thought I was the funniest person in the world.
