49 (2017-2018): Review: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM (seen July 27, 2017)

"Swingin' the Dream"

For my review of A Midsummer Night's Dream please click on THE BROADWAY BLOG.

48 (2017-2018): Review: SUMMER SHORTS 2017: SERIES A (seen July 26, 2017)

"Death, God, and the Sexes"

The traditional “one-act” play, the kind that runs 20 minutes to a half hour, as opposed to the increasingly common variety that can last as long as two intermissionless hours, gets only rare exposure on New York’s main stages. Thanks, however, to 59E59 Theatres, local theatergoers have an annual opportunity to indulge in a half-dozen of these “short plays,” produced in two three-play programs designated as Summer Shorts: Series A and Series B.

These constitute the 11th season of 59E59’s “Festival of New American Short Plays,” founded by actor J.J. Kandel, the producing artistic director. He can be seen in a brief, pre-show documentary performing in “10K,” a Neil LaBute play from the 2015 Summer Shorts, as part of a project to film these plays by the Stage and Screen Initiative.

My general reaction to the previous five seasons of Summer Shorts has been on the tepid side, few, if any, of the offerings rising to an A-grade level. This year’s Series A, though, is a vast improvement, its plays including Melissa Ross’s “Jack,” a bittersweet, park-bench comedy about a recently divorced couple mourning a pet’s death; Alan Zweibel’s “Playing God,” a familiar farce about God coming to earth to teach someone a lesson; and Graham Moore’s “Acolyte,” an intellectually engaging drawing-room sex comedy satirizing the ideas of Ayn Rand. I’d grade them B+ for “Jack,” B-/C+ for “Playing God,” and A for “Acolyte.”

Providing a suitably neutral background for the evening is Rebecca Lord-Surratt’s box set of white walls accented by wooden strips, with Greg MacPherson’s repertory lighting scheme flexible enough to serve each play appropriately. Amy Sutton’s costumes are fine, while Nicholas Hussung’s projections and Nick Moore’s sound design serve each show well.

Quincy Dunn-Baker, Claire Karpen. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

“Jack” features George (Quincy Dunn-Baker, think Oscar Isaac) and Maggie (Claire Karpen, think Mary-Louise Parker), an attractive, recently divorced, late-30s couple meeting at the inevitable bench, this one near the dog run in a city park. Something sad has happened to Jack, their dog, and the bereaved Maggie is upset that, as per their legal agreement, George didn’t call her to let her know about it until it was too late. This precipitates a back-and-forth during which they squabble while also revealing their still underlying feelings for each other as, bit by bit, the details of Jack’s story are revealed and the consequences discussed.

Quincy Dunn-Baker, Claire Karpen. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

Ross reveals an assured talent for sustaining interest in an essentially banal situation by how effectively she withholds information, letting it leak out in a sequence of amusingly endearing moments that offer unexpected touches and help both to bring George and Maggie together and push them apart. Much of the credit goes to the beautifully calibrated direction of Mimi O’Donnell, who extracts just the right tones of anger, recrimination, and guilt still burbling in the hearts of its protagonists. Dunn-Baker is appealingly frustrated in his attempts to explain himself, while Karpen embodies his high-strung ex with charming exasperation.

Quincy Dunn-Baker, Claire Karpen. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

At times, though, there’s a feeling that perhaps, in order to keep the play’s engine running, Maggie’s reactions go a tad too far. Also, given the play’s structural consistency, its conclusion is anticlimactic; that is, there’ve been so many expository surprises, the lack of a final one is disappointing. Everything’s so smoothly carried off, though, with humor and pathos, that these glitches seem relatively minor.

Dana Watkins, Flora Ruiz. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

My first impression of “Playing God” was that it’s like a highly polished “Saturday Night Live” sketch; only later did I discover that playwright Zweibel is an original SNL writer (not to mention for such other programs as “The Garry Shandling Show” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm”). If you’re familiar with movies based on God being comically human, like the Oh, God! series starring George Burns, Bruce Almighty with Morgan Freeman, or even A Little Bit of Heaven with Whoopi Goldberg, you’ll have a fair idea of why Zweibel’s concept is so unsurprising.

Bill Buell, Dana Watkins. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

In “Playing God” the title character is acted in robe and sandals by white-haired Bill Buell, whose eye bags are so prominent they must be bearing the burden of God’s big job. Dr. Scott Fisher (Dana Watkins), a smug obstetrician, decides to induce labor in a pregnant patient (Flora Diaz) earlier than she expected so he can go on a skiing trip. Learning this, God gets upset about mankind presuming to take godly matters into their own hands. Disregarding the opposition of his wryly skeptical assistant (Welker White), God visits the atheistic doctor and, using his heavenly powers, happily squashes him at a game of squash, then finishes him off in a way guaranteed to keep his patients at bay.

Bill Buell, Welker White. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

Zweibel rings the concept for some worthy laughs, as, doubtless will other writers yet to come, but the formula of a comically irritated God teaching a faithless mortal a lesson is too familiar to warrant yet another go round. Luckily, Maria Mileaf’s lighthearted direction, Buell’s mischievous deity, Watkins’s egotistical physician, and White’s sarcastic assistant help the piece go down smoothly.

The most interesting play, “Acolyte,” by Graham Moore, bestselling novelist (The Last Days of Night) and Academy Award-winning screenwriter (The Imitation Game), takes on the daunting challenge of creating a half-hour play set at a small gathering in famed author and thinker Ayn Rand’s W. 36th Street apartment on November 6, 1954.

Sam Lilja, Orlagh Cassidy, Brontë England-Nelson, Ted Koch. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

Rand, the heavily-accented, Russian-born screenwriter and novelist most famous for The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, is still revered by many who believe in her anti-religious dogma of reason over emotion and dependence on self over others, among them Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and a number of entrepreneurial big shots. She herself can be seen explaining her theories of Objectivism in a 1958 interview with Mike Wallace, worth watching if you see this play in which Orlagh Cassidy (a dead ringer, apart from the actress’s better teeth) is perfectly cast as the cool, calculating, and controlling philosopher.

Orlagh Cassidy, Brontë England-Nelson. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

Remaining at Rand’s apartment after she’s concluded a lecture to her followers are the 49-year-old Rand herself; her booze-loving, undereducated, 57-year-old husband, Frank O’Connor (Ted Koch); and another married couple, Nathaniel (Sam Lilja) and Barbara Branden (Brontë England-Nelson), 24 and 25, respectively. Both are Rand acolytes, Barbara being a grad student in philosophy. During the course of the evening the foursome discuss Rand’s controversial concepts, especially those relating to sexual relations, leading to dynamic confrontations when those concepts are put to the test.

Nathaniel and Barbara Branden, the latter having written the first biography of Rand, were well-known intellectuals and the situation in the play is based on their actual romantic/sexual associations with the philosopher. This material previously was dramatized in the 1999 movie The Passion of Ayn Rand, based on one of Branden’s books, starring Helen Mirren as Rand and Julie Delpy as Barbara.

Orlagh Cassidy, Brontë England-Nelson. Photo: Carol Rosegg

Moore does an excellent job of crafting an engrossing discussion drama exploring Rand’s provocative notions, keeping us involved even during a philosophical argument sparked by Barbara’s asking, “Does Aristotelian epistemology correct the problem of universals in Platonic realism?”

Director Alexander Dinelaris (Academy Award-winning screenwriter for Birdman) and his actors—especially Cassidy and England-Nelson—make the dialogue both accessible and compelling, with some really sharp give and take between Barbara and Ayn. “Acolyte” would be well worth seeing, even without the lighter fare preceding it.

With them, though, audiences will find that this edition of Summer Shorts provides a well-balanced, excellently acted and directed 90-minute destination for a summer night in Manhattan.

OTHER VIEWPOINTS:

Show-Score.com

Summer Shorts 2017: Series A

59E59 Theaters/Theater B

59 E. 59^th St., NYC

Through September 2

47 (2017-2018): Review: DEAR JANE, (seen July 25, 2017)

"A Life Unraveled"

For my review of Dear Jane, please click on THE BROADWAY BLOG.

46 (2017-2018): Review: MONEY TALKS (seen July 24, 2017)

"The Buck Stops Here"

Benjamin Franklin never said “Money talks but bullshit walks.” However, as the klutzy Money Talks: The Musical reminds us, he came up with so many other money-related maxims, he probably would have also coined this one had he lived long enough. Bullshit aside, money does actually talk in this show, mainly through Ben (Ralph Byers) himself, represented as a $100 bill, but also in the persons of George Washington (George Merrick) as a one-dollar bill, Abe Lincoln (Brennan Caldwell) as a fiver, and the ubiquitous Alexander Hamilton (Sandra DeNise) as a ten-spot. Their period costumes, designed by Vanessa Lueck, with fabrics bearing currency-influenced motifs, are the show’s creative highlight.  

Brennan Caldwell, Ralph Byers, George Merrick, Sandra DeNice. Photo: Jeremy Daniels.

For the most part, this greenback chorus takes a back seat to scenes clumsily constructed along the lines of Arthur Schnitzler’s once controversial 1897 play, Reigen, well known as La Ronde. Schnitzler’s classic strings together 10 scenes, each with two characters; when a scene ends and a new one begins, one character from the previous scene remains and a new one appears, each scene expressing another variation on the theme of sex.

Book and lyric writer Peter Kellogg’s script for Money Talks, its music by David Friedman, shifts the emphasis from sex to money but struggles to maintain the structural conceit, which, like the innocuous scenes themselves, goes bankrupt midway through. Even the money theme dissipates in order to skim familiar political issues, including topics like gay adoption. Overall, the show’s point of view is scattershot, and we’re left to ponder what exactly it wants to say about money, or anything else, that we don’t already know or need reminding of.

George Merrick, Sandra DeNise, Brennan Caldwell, Ralph Byers. Photo: Jeremy Daniels.

Franklin is on stage throughout, representing the vicissitudes of a $100 bill as it passes from one person to another. Although no one hears him except us, Ben comments on everything, usually citing one of the maxims from his Poor Richard's Almanac, each with some financial or ethical content. His experiences take him to many places, including a strip club, a stripper’s apartment, a Vegas casino, the lawn of an LA mansion, a recording studio, an Italian restaurant, the inside of a purse, a hair salon, a law office, an adoption agency, an evangelical church, a bank, and so on.

The events often seem created simply as setups for Ben—who loves to brag about his many accomplishments—to zing a famous proverb. He puts up when you want him to shut up. Not that there’d be much there if he did. Awkwardly directed and choreographed by Michael Chase Gosselin on Ann Beyersdorfer’s abstract set using movable black cubes to define locales, with lots of projections (by Ido Levran) on a backdrop resembling a digitalized map of the U.S., Money Talks clunks along from one seriously unfunny scene to the next. Some of the scene transitions define amateurism; and must we keep seeing stagehands doing shifts?

Ralph Byers, George Merrick, Brennan Caldwell, Sandra DeNice. Photo: Jeremy Daniels.

Ralph Byers brings a veteran’s polish to Franklin but can’t prevent the guy from boring us to tears. Each of the others plays around a dozen roles, using quick costume changes and wigs, some of them pure cheese. Among the panoply of stereotypes are a hedge fund manager, a sexy stripper, a supposedly dumb blonde, a Hispanic gardener, a guitar playing (ouch!) female singer, a swishy hair stylist, an operatic Italian chef, a crooked cop, a hooker, a Jimmy Swaggart-like preacher, and even a despicable CEO portrayed by putting him in a business suit, a long tie, and a bright red baseball cap.

Ralph Byers. Photo: Jeremy Daniels.

The actors are lively and committed but, generally, lack the versatility and skill with accents to make their clichéd characters memorable. They sing Friedman’s generic score—which includes country, gospel, and pop rock—with verve but only passable musical chops. Only Sandra DeNise shows the kind of looks, voice, and charm that might lead to better things.

Money Talks talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk. And that’s no bullshit.

OTHER VIEWPOINTS:

Show-Score.com

Money Talks

Davenport Theatre

354 W. 54^th St., NYC

Through September 3

45 (2017-2018): Review: PIPELINE (seen July 19, 2017)

"It Keeps Pumping"

As a passage in the current Lincoln Center Theater Review informs visitors to Dominique Morisseau’s (Skeleton Crew) sharply written, vividly acted, but somewhat uneven Pipeline, the play’s title (a word never mentioned in the play) has multiple metaphoric meanings, especially in the education world. The chief one she’s concerned with here is “the school-to-prison pipeline, which funnels children out of public schools and into the criminal-justice system.”

Karen Pittman, Namir Smallwood. Photo: Jeremy Daniel.

Nya (Karen Pittman), an African-American English teacher at an inner city high school, is determined that her teenage son, Omari (Namir Smallwood), will not himself be pushed through that pipeline. She and her ex-husband, Xavier (Morocco Omari), a successful businessman, have sent Omari to Fernwood, an upstate, exclusive, predominantly white, prep school, to help him avoid such a fate. Omari nonetheless finds himself in legal jeopardy.

During a classroom incident in which his teacher singled him out for his responses to the plight of Bigger Thomas in Richard Wright’s Native Son, a classic of African-American literature, the angrily frustrated Omari responded by pushing the teacher so hard he faces having charges brought against him. This being Omari’s “third strike” at the school, things don’t look promising. When we later learn the specific reasons for his fury, we, like his mom and dad, may not agree that they condone his behavior.

Nya, who sees her aspirations for her son endangered, is devastated by what’s happened. Morisseau introduces us to her as a gifted educator teaching her students a brief but powerful poem by Gwendolyn Brooks, “We Real Cool.” Its eight lines sum up the world of young blacks faced with bleak prospects, captured in the final phrase: “We die soon,” a fate she wants to shield Omari from.

To further point up the dangers in inner city schools, the only other school employees we meet are Dun (Jaime Lincoln Smith), a well-meaning security guard (who has a yen for Nya), and Laurie (Tasha Lawrence), a jaded, angry, white teacher, who finds herself having to break up a fight between two boys by herself becoming physically involved.

Heather Velazquez, Namir Smallwood. Photo: Jeremy Daniel.

As if the prevalence of such fighting needs further emphasis, many scene changes are accompanied by projections (designed by Hanna Wasileski) of what appear to be actual incidents of school violence. Interesting, yes, but, even with the offstage fight Laurie witnesses, they muddle the main subject, the overreaction of a troubled, middle-class black youth to a prep school instructor’s overzealous teaching. This is not the same thing as what the videos display.

The pipeline issues, while certainly real, don’t seem that well connected to the family drama surrounding Omari, a situation that, with a few tweaks, could apply as well to striving families of any ethnicity, regardless of its obvious pertinence for blacks. In other words, it’s hard to extrapolate larger social lessons regarding the difficulties in educating underprivileged minorities from Omari’s very specific situation; that would seem to lie more within the provenance of the Laurie subplot.

And one wonders why the otherwise verbally adept Omari—with his well-educated parents communicating in excellent English—speaks in ungrammatical homeboy locutions, like “Ain’t wanna leave that way” or “This is his words, not yours,” and is never corrected. It’s one thing for him to choose such language when speaking to his prep school girlfriend, Jasmine (Heather Velazquez), a Latina from an underprivileged family, similarly bright and given to a terrifically heightened version of teenage slang. It seems odd that Omari’s parents, so intent on his acquiring some of the perks of white privilege, pay his words no mind. You don’t have to be a sergeant in the grammar police to want your child to speak properly, especially when you do.

Morocco Omari, Namir Smallwood. Photo: Jeremy Daniel.

Director Lileana Blain-Cruz’s staging of this 90-minute drama varies the locales (classroom, meeting room, dorm, waiting room, etc.) via minimal scenic units rolled on in front of a set (designed by Matt Saunders) showing a towering white, cinderblock wall with a metal door set in it, suggesting institutional oppression. Yi Zhao’s mostly bright lighting intensifies the effect.

Montana Levi Bianco’s costumes suitably reflect what these characters might wear, with the most noteworthy being Nya’s casual chic of high-heeled boots, skintight jeans, pale blue shirt, and thin, smart jackets or thin, hip-length sweaters; the twisting and tying of the latter's halves give her something with which to occupy her hands.

Namir Smallwood, Karen Pittman. Photo: Jeremy Daniel.

Blain-Cruz keeps the pace brisk and the energy fierce as her actors engage in a series of high-temperature confrontations, often abandoning naturalism for poetic realism. These scenes sometimes overdramatize what’s being said; luckily, Morisseau’s richly colorful dialogue sizzles and the cast is top-notch at expressing the characters’ rage and frustration.

Blain-Cruz gets a striking performance from Pittman as the distraught Nya, chain smoking (albeit, like many actors nowadays, unconvincingly) and even hitting the bottle; a deft and passionate one from Smallwood as Omari, although he’s too old for the role; a scene-stealing one from Velazquez as the defiant but vulnerable Jasmine; a commanding one from Omari as Xavier, the father who substitutes financial for emotional support; a ferocious one by Lawrence as a teacher at the end of her tether; and a proud one from Smith as Dun, a caring man in a stressful job.

It isn’t the best example of Morisseau’s work, and it does sometimes get clogged, but Pipeline keeps on pumping when other plays might have run out of gas. 

OTHER VIEWPOINTS:

Show-Score.com

Pipeline

Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse

Lincoln Center, NYC

Through August 27

44 (2017-2018): Review: LUCIE POHL: HI, HITLER (seen July 16, 2017)

"Springtime for Lucie"

For my review of Hi, Hitler please click on THE BROADWAY BLOG.

43 (2017-2018): Review: MY DEAR WATSON (seen July 11, 2017)

"Clueless"

For my review of My Dear Watson please click on THE BROADWAY BLOG.

42 (2017-2018): Review: AMERIKE--THE GOLDEN LAND (seen July 10, 2017)

"Let Them In"

Last summer it was the glorious The Golden Bride, this year it’s Amerike—The Golden Land. With these shining examples, the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene has struck a rich lode of affecting musical ore expressing the experience of Jewish immigrants to our glittering if somewhat tarnished nation.

Isabelle Nesti, Bobby Underwood, Alexandra Frohlinger, Grant Richards, Dani Marcus. Photo: Victor Nechay.

Daniel Kahn, Alexandra Frohlinger, Glenn Seven Allen. Photo: Victor Nechay.

The show began in 1982 and continued to evolve over the years, with additional productions. The most recent was at the Baruch Performing Arts Center in 2012, about which I wrote in the early days of this blog  when I had little time for more than a cursory notice:

Let me make this simple. THE GOLDEN LAND, a Yiddish-English musical produced by the Jewish National Theatre—Folksbiene, is wonderful. That’s W-O-N-D-E-R-F-U-L. To paraphrase one of its songs, "Oy, oy, I liked it." . . . I hope you shlep your tuchus down to Baruch and kvell at this delightful assortment of songs that capture the Jewish immigrant experience. . . . You don’t have to be Jewish to like THE GOLDEN LAND. 

The revival of this heartfelt tribute to Jewish immigration’s place in American history couldn’t come at a better time nor be presented at a more appropriate place, the Museum of Jewish Heritage, in full view of both Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

Dani Marcus, David Perlman, Stephanie Lynne Mason. Photo: Victor Nechay.

Unlike The Golden Bride, a revival of a 1923 Yiddish musical, Amerike is a revue, stringing together three dozen disparate but remarkably expressive Yiddish songs. There are also a couple in English, like the still powerful “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime,” by “Yip” Harburg and Jay Gorney, or Irving Berlin’s “Give Me Your Tired Your Poor,” using Emma Lazarus’s famous words. 

David Perlman, Daniel Kahn. Photo: Victor Nechay.

Connecting them is a slight narrative, by Moishe Rosenfeld and Zalmen Mlotek, about Eastern European immigrants coming to America at the turn of the 20th century, starving, striving, and struggling to breathe free as they gradually assimilate into mainstream society. The immigrant experience itself, pertinent as it is, eventually merges into what seems a greatest hits list of Jewish-American issues over the first half of the 20th century.

Glenn Seven Allen, Dani Marcus. Photo: Victor Nechay.

Laughs pepper the plot but, while it gets the evening’s biggest response, the show could do without that groan-worthy old chestnut about the refugee at Ellis Island using the Yiddish expression for “I can’t remember” and, because of what it sounds like, being given the name Sean Ferguson. I saw it coming minutes before it arrived. Oy gevalt!

Dani Marcus, Glenn Seven Allen, and company. Photo: Victor Nechay.

Amerike takes us through the years, as fashions change, from the Ellis Island days through those of the tenement dwellers and pushcart peddlers, the Triangle Fire, the citizenship process, World War I recruitment, the Yiddish theatre, unionism, WEVD radio (commercials and all), the Depression, and the immediate postwar world of displaced persons (d.p.’s as we used to call them). Some material, while given a Jewish slant, is not specifically ethnic—like the Depression—while the Holocaust is treated in only a perfunctory way.

Company of Amerike--The Golden Land. Photo: Victor Nechay.

The show’s surprises lie not in its historical facts but in how appealing are its less well-known songs, like Boris Thomashevsky and Joseph Rumshinsky’s “Uptown, Downtown” or Rumshinsky and Louis Gilrod’s “Fifty-Fifty.”

Alexandra Frohlinger, David Perlman, Daniel Kahn, Stepanie Lynne Mason. Photo: Victor Nechay.

Seven gifted performers play 10 named roles backed by a chorus of six but so many years pass, so many costumes are worn, and so little character evolution occurs that following any particular character’s arc becomes insignificant, if not impossible. Instead, you’re best off simply giving yourself over to the panoply of musical delights, many of which will be familiar only to klezmer aficionados.

Company of Amerike--The Golden Land. Photo: Victor Nechay.

Others, like Aaron Lebedeff’s tongue-twisting “Roumania, Roumania” or Jacob Jacobs and Alexander Olshanetsky’s melodically moving “Mayn Sthtetle Belz,” will be immediately recognizable to most Jews of a certain age—from the nonobservant to the orthodox—who grew up when bar mitzvah entertainers thought hip hop was a sidewalk game.

Isabelle Nesti, Dani Marcus, Maya Jacobson, Raquel Nobile. Amerike--The Golden Land. Photo: Victor Nechay.

There’s schmaltz, of course; no one sings “My Yiddishe Momme” but a bereaved momme does sing of her deceased, teenage daughter. Still, the overall tone is upbeat and positive, with swelling voices, vaudeville-style choreography, and cheerful comedy. It’s inescapable that the 90-minute, intermissionless show, which offers a brief klezmer concert during the curtain calls, will get a standing o.

Alexander Kosmowski, Isabel Nesti, Alexandra Frohlinger, Daniel Kah, David Perlman, Stephanie Lynne Mason, Bobby Underwood, Grant Richards, Raquel Nobile. Photo: Victor Nechay.

And, for those whose Yiddish is restricted to the choicer items in Leo Rosten’s hilarious The Joys of Yiddish, you’ll appreciate the English (and Russian, if you’re so inclined) surtitles; if you’re close to the stage, though, you may not appreciate the crick in your neck you’ll get from reading them. A suggestion: place them on the sides of the stage as well.

David Perlman, Daniel Kahn, Glenn Seven Allen, Bobby Underwood, Alexander Kosmowsky.  Photo: Victor Nechay. 

Nostalgic and sentimental as it can be, Amerike’s view of the aspiring masses who surged here in the late 19th and early 20th century is a potent plea for our nation to open, not close, our borders to asylum seekers fleeing their hellish existence in oppressive, war-torn countries. 

Not that the Jewish immigrants coming here always found welcoming arms—we see  how even their fellow Jews exploited them as landlords and bosses—but, over time, they assimilated and became an integral, essential part of what made and continues to make America great. When a man in a crowd scene says Holocaust refugees seeking entry should be rejected on the grounds of “America first,” a chill ran down my spine. America first does not mean America great.

Front: Raquel Nobile, Maya Jacobson, Alexandera Frohlinger, Dani Marcus, Stephanie Lynne Mason, Isabel Nesti. Back row: David Perlman, Daniel Kahn, Grant Richards, Glenn Seven Allen, Alexander Osmowski, Bobby Underwood.. Photo: Victor Nechay.

Kudos to Bryna Wasserman for her marvelous staging, Zalmen Mlotek for his musical direction, and Merete Muenter for her “movement” (what’s wrong with “choreography”?). Also contributing mightily are Jason Le Courson’s set, using sliding panels to vary the visual effect; Izzy Fields’s multitude of period-evoking costumes; Courson's video projections, including old-time New York street scenes; Yael Lubetzky's versatile lighting; and Patrick Calhoun’s expert sound design.

Alexandra Frohlinger. Photo: Victor Nechay.

Glenn Seven Allen, Daniel Kahn, David Perlman. Photo: Victor Nechay.

And mazel tov to the entire cast, especially the leads, several of whom appeared in last year’s The Golden Bride: Glenn Seven Allen, Alexandra Frohlinger, Jessica Rose Futran, Daniel Kahn, Dani Marcus, Stephanie Lynne Mason, and David Perlman. I’m told that only Kahn, who offers an outstanding “Roumania, Roumania,” is truly fluent in Yiddish, while, of the principals, half have performed in Yiddish and half are completely new to it. An amazing job.

Company of Amerike--The Golden Land. Photo: Victor Nechay.

A major reason for their success is Yiddish diction coach Motl Didner, whose pre-show, 15-minute, introductory primer on the language I urge you to visit. Didner’s expressive teaching even got me to remember some of my own long lost Yiddish words. My fluent, Brooklyn-born mother, would have kvelled.

Company of Amerike--The Golden Land. Photo: Victor Nechay.

Be you Galitzianer, Litvak, Poylish, or any variety of goy, you’ll be doing yourself a mitzvah by visiting Amerike—The Golden Land or, as they used to say on Hester Street, the goldeneh medina.

OTHER VIEWPOINTS:

Show-Score.com

Amerike—The Golden Land

Museum of Jewish Heritage

36 Battery Place, NYC

Through August 6