THE DYBBUK (2 Productions)
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| Company of The Dybbuk. |
"In Lieu of Reviews"
Reviews of live theatre being impossible during these days of the pandemic, THEATRE'S LEITER SIDE
is pleased to provide instead accounts of previous theatre
seasons--encompassing the years 1970-1975-for theatre-hungry readers. If you'd
like to know the background on how this previously unpublished series came to
be and what its relationship is to my three The Encyclopedia of the New
York Stage volumes (covering every New York play, musical, revue, and
revival between 1920 and 1950), please check the prefaces to any of the entries
beginning with the letter “A.” See the list at the end of the current entry.
1.
THE DYBBUK [Dramatic
Revival/Yiddish Language] A: S. Ansky; D: Franz Auerbach; P: Kazuko Hillyer
i/a/w Brooklyn Academy of Music; T: Brooklyn Academy of Music (OB);
9/19/72-10/1/72 (8)
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| Company of The Dybbuk. |
The Dybbuk is
a mystical 1920 (written 1918) drama about the possession of a Chassidic girl
(Leonie Waldman) by the spirit of her dead lover (Adrian Lupo), and of the
exorcism that follows. The first of its two early 1970s revivals was this Yiddish-language
one presented by the Jewish State Theatre of Bucharest, Romania, the very
nation in which Yiddish theatre was born in the 19th century. The
production used a simultaneous translation heard over headphones.
It was a low-keyed staging with
abstract settings resembling the sculpture of Louise Nevelson, the focus being “on
the serenity of the lovers’ mythic conquest of death,” as Clive Barnes put it A
considerable degree of stylization was used in the acting and direction, much
of it bordering on dance. Barnes thought the show, which played in repertory
with The Pearl Necklace, “a rewarding
one.”
2.
[THE DYBBUK and] “PRISCILLA, PRINCESS OF POWER” [Comedy] AD: “Priscilla”) the
company, under the supervision of Ed Waterstreet, Jr, from a script by James
Stevenson; D: (The Dybbuk) John
Broome; (“Priscilla”) Ed Waterstreet, Jr.; S: David Hays; C: Fred Voelpel; L:
Guy Bergquist; P: Brooklyn Academy of Music in the O’Neill Center’s National
Theatre of the Deaf Production; T: Brooklyn Academy of Music/Leperq Space (OB);
4/7/75-4/13/75 (8)
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| Company of The Dybbuk. |
The critics pointed out that the
speaking actors, though initially somewhat intrusive, soon became peripheral.
Occasionally, they moved alongside of the deaf players, even dancing with them.
“They are so skillfully intermingled and synchronized that the ear is never
cheated,” wrote Oliver. The effect worked very well in the possession scene of The Dybbuk, where the girl (Freda
Norman) is writhing in frenzy and the female voice dubbing for her turns to a
male one. The play’s mystery was deepened by the sign gestures, and the need
for speech was often obviated by the physical activity. The play was done in a
heavily ritualistic, somber tone, but the evening was greatly lightened by the
second piece.
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| Linda Bove, Patrick Grayhill, Elaine Bromka. |
“Priscilla, Princess of Power” was
presented in comic-book style, telling the story of Priscilla (Linda Bove), a
worker in a jelly bean factory who is transformed into a dynamic superheroine
in order to defeat the factory’s secret head, Dr. Schlock (Bernard Bragg), “the
world’s most evil dentist.” Using onomatopoeic expressions like “pow” and “wham,”
dialogue balloons over the actors’ heads conveyed the pop-art spirit of this
energetic entertainment. “The humor is broad and some of it is cute,” declared
Mel Gussow. Mimic talent abounded in the playful romp, as the actors portrayed
such intimate objects as an assembly line, dental equipment, a drive-in movie
theatre, and a gas station.
Previous Entries:
Abelard and Heloise
Absurd Person
Singular
AC/DC
“Acrobats”
and “Line”
The Advertisement/
All My Sons
All Over
All Over Town
All the Girls Came
Out to Play
Alpha Beta
L’Amante
Anglais
Ambassador
American Gothics
Amphitryon
And Miss Reardon
Drinks a Little
And They Put
Handcuffs on the Flowers
And Whose Little
Boy Are You?
Anna K.
Anne of Green
Gables
Antigone
Antiques
Any Resemblance to Persons Living or Dead
Applause
Ari
As You Like It
Augusta
The Au Pair Man
Baba Goya [Nourish the Beast]
The Ballad of Johnny Pot
Barbary Shore
The Bar that Never Closes
The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel
The Beauty Part
The Beggar’s Opera
Behold! Cometh the Vanderkellens
Be Kind to People Week
Berlin to Broadway with Kurt Weill
Bette Midler’s Clams on a Half-Shell Revue
Black Girl
Black Light Theatre of Prague
Black Picture Show
Black Sunlight
The Black Terror
Black Visions
Les Blancs
Blasts and Bravos: An Evening with H,L.
Mencken
Blood
Bluebeard
Blue Boys
Bob and Ray—The Two and Only
Boesman and Lena
The Boy Who Came to Leave
Bread
A Breeze from the Gulf
Brief Lives
Brother Gorski
Brothers
Bullshot Crummond
Bunraku
The Burnt Flower Bed
Butley
Button, Button
Buy Bonds, Buster
The Cage
Camille
Candide (1)
Candide (2)
The Candyapple
Captain Brassbound’s Conversion
The Caretaker
La Carpa de los Raquichis
The Carpenters
The Castro Complex
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
The Changing Room
Charles Abbott and Son
Charley’s Aunt
Charlie Was Here and Now He’s Gone
Chemin de Fer
The Cherry Orchard
The Chickencoop Chinaman
The Children
Children! Children!
Children in the Rain
Children of the Wind
The Children’s Mass
A Chorus Line
The Chronicle of Henry VI: Part 1, Part
II,
The Circle
Clarence Darrow
Cold Feet
Conditions of Agreement
Coney Island Cycle
The Constant Wife
The Contractor
The Contrast
The Constant Wife
The Country Girl
Crazy Now
The Creation of the
World and Other Business
Creeps
The Crucible
Crystal and Fox
Cyrano
Dames at Sea
The Dance of Death
Dance wi’Me/Dance with
Me
A Day in the Life of
Just about Everyone
Dear Nobody
Dear Oscar
The
Desert Song
Diamond
Studs
Different
Times
The
Dirtiest Show in Town
The
Divorce of Judy and Jane
Do It Again!
Doctor
Jazz
A
Doll’s House (2)
Don
Juan
Don
Juan in Hell
Don’t
Bother Me, I Can’t Cope
Don’t
Call Back
Don’t
Play Us Cheap!
Drat!
The
Dream on Monkey Mountain
A Dream Out of Time
Dreyfus in Rehearsal
Dude: The Highway Life
The Duplex