161. LIES MY FATHER TOLD ME
LIES MY FATHER TOLD ME, another musical
based on a movie, has come to town, this one at the Baruch Performing Arts
Center, where it is being produced by the venerable National Yiddish Theatre—Folksbiene
company. In celebration of the troupe’s 99th season, a remarkable record to
which no other New York troupe comes close, it has lavished its resources on
what it touts as one of its most elaborate productions, a 17-actor
musicalization of Jan Kadar’s Academy Award-nominated1975 Canadian movie about
a Jewish boy’s coming of age in 1920s Montreal, based on the writings of Ted
Allan. It had its world premiere in Montreal in 2010; this is its first New
York showing.
Alex Dreier and Chuck Karel. Photo: Michael Priest.
The
two-hour 15-minute show, apart from a few familiar Yiddish words, is in English,
like most Folksbiene productions these days. If you weren’t aware of the
story’s background, you might think when it begins that it’s set among the immigrant
population of New York’s Lower East Side. John C. Dinning’s impressive set
shows a stable at stage right and a large structure at the left that revolves
to show the exterior or interior of the house in which young David (Alex
Dreier) and his family live. The family consists of Danny’s adoring, gentle
mother, Annie (Russell Arden Koplin), his get-rich-quick schemer of a father,
Harry (Jonathan Raviv), and his Tevye-like grandpa, called by the Yiddish term
“Zaida” (Chuck Karel). There’s also Uncle Benny (Jonathan Hadley), ready to
partner Harry’s ideas, but quick to separate himself when things go wrong.
Neighborhood characters include the flinty Irishwoman Mrs. Tanner (Renée Bang
Allen), always complaining about the filth produced by Zaida’s old nag,
Ferdeleh; Edna (Leisa Mather), the local heart-of-gold prostitute; and Mr.
Baumgarten (Gordon Stanley), the Marxist tailor who debates Marxism versus religion
with Zaida in a song called “Politics”: Zaida keeps waiting for the messiah but Baumgarten insists
the messiah is the working class.
Front row, from left: Jonathan Hadley, Jonathan Raviv, Russell Arden Koplin, Chuck Karel, and Gordon Stanley. Photo: Michael Priest.
The
central plot, such as it is, concerns the seven-year-old David and his
relationship with his beloved 70-year-old Zaida, whom he often accompanies on
the old man’s horse-drawn cart (the horse is imagined) as he goes around the
ghetto selling junk (and singing “Rags, Clothes, Bottles”) and telling David fantastical
stories, imagining (in “Magic Wings”) that the nag has wings that help to fly
them to China and other exotic places. Harry’s latest scheme is the invention
of creaseless trousers, for which, as usual, he must borrow money from the
skeptical Zaida, and which, also as usual, turns out to be a flop. The secular Harry’s
rejection of Zaida’s religious beliefs (he calls the old man a “religious
hypocrite” when Zaida resists his borrowing demands) is another plot spur, as is
the boy’s love for Ferdeleh, which is on its last legs. One of the most
uncomfortable sequences comes when David grows jealous of his mother’s
breastfeeding her new arrival, and demands to be given the same treat, a notion
of which the embarrassed Zaida must disabuse him. Narrating the story, which
is basically a string of incidents, is the grown-up David (Joe Paparella), who
observes the action he’s describing and occasionally expresses himself in song.
A driving force behind David’s revelations is his need to confront his anger
toward his father, a man who could never take criticism, called everyone an
idiot, had a gambling problem, was physically abusive, and had trouble with the
truth. But David's ire is never resolved. Despite Zaida’s teaching young David to honor his father, regardless of what he does, older David is never able to do so, which gives the show’s hopefully sentimental qualities a sour edge, as seen in the unforgiving title.
Elan Kunin's music, lyrics, and orchestration have something of the right ethnic and period
quality, but never rise much beyond the conventional.The
direction of Bryna Wasserman, who adapted the film script, is mechanical;
her choice of having characters pet the invisible horse seems awkward in this otherwise literal-looking environment, where
we already may feel the horse's absence too sharply. And either insufficient rehearsal or directorial inattention was responsible for the
slack scene transitions when I saw the show. Merete Muenter is responsible for the
familiar, if jaunty, choreography. And Izzy Fields's costumes evoke the period. The actors do their best,
especially Chuck Karel as the deep-voiced (if sometimes flat) Zaida, the
promising child actor Alex Dreier as young David, Jonathan Raviv as the
unpleasant Harry, and Russell Arden Koplin (who sings nicely the sweet ballad, “Maybe
Someday”) as the long-suffering mother. The ensemble also includes a handful of
sprightly kids.
By and large, LIES
MY FATHER TOLD ME struggles from a general lack of spontaneity, and the show
often lies there, like unleavened bread. It’s too bad there are no Passover
scenes.
