Return
of the King
The San Diego Rep will put on a staged reading of
an English adaptation of a Yiddish translation of Shakespeare’s
“King Lear.” Got that?
By Patricia Morris Buckley
While Broadway has long been the center of American theater,
the Lower East Side once was the Yiddish theater capital of the world.
Jewish audiences flocked to watch drama and comedy in the universal Yiddish
tongue. While some theaters created new works just for the Yiddish theater,
others translated classic plays into Yiddish.
And that’s where the story of “The Jewish King
Lear” begins.
One of the great playwrights of the Yiddish theater, Russian
emigrant Jacob Gordin loved to pen plays with strong moral messages. That’s
probably why he wrote “Der Yiddishe Koenig Lear” (“The
Yiddish King Lear”) in the late 1800s. With Yiddish theater’s
best-known thespian, Jacob Adler, in the title role, the production was
so successful it became a Yiddish film in 1934.
Yet, in the late ‘30s, while war waged in Europe, Yiddish
theater declined and then took its last breath in the early ‘40s.
And so Gordin’s “King Lear” became a mere footnote in
stage history – until Todd Salovey became interested in reviving
the play.
“About six or seven years ago, I heard about a Yiddish
version of ‘King Lear,’ and initially was interested in translating
it into English,” says Salovey, associate artistic director of the
San Diego Repertory Theatre. “I wanted to see how the Yiddish audience
experienced their ‘King Lear.’”
Salovey’s long-held fascination with Shakespeare’s
aging patriarch added to his passion for the idea. He recently directed
a production of the Bard’s “King Lear” at the San Diego
Rep starring founding artistic director Sam Woodhouse. Salovey felt “The
Yiddish King Lear” would be a perfect fit for the Lipinsky Family
San Diego Jewish Arts Festival, a Jewish theater and music festival he
oversees every spring.
“I’ve probably seen ‘King Lear’ more
than anyone else in San Diego in the last two months,” he says.
“I think it’s one of the most tremendous, moving stories I’ve
ever seen. I still get chills from it.”
Three years ago, Salovey approached Allan Havis, a professor
of playwriting at the University of California, San Diego, where Salovey
also teaches. Havis had co-written the Rep’s production of “Nuevo
California.” “He’s Jewish himself and very interested
in Jewish characters and Jewish themes,” says Salovey. “But
he thought that, rather than a translation, that we could adapt the play
into a new play.”
In this re-envisioned work, now retitled “A Very Jewish
King,” Havis transplanted the setting of Gordin’s script from
Europe to New York in the final days of Yiddish theater. The main character
is now a famous Yiddish actor who is giving up his life in the theater
and dividing his property among his three daughters, all actresses.
Havis added a Mrs. Lear and made the younger daughter, Cordelia,
not so goody-two-shoes. He cut out one subplot and all the husbands and
reigned in the number of deaths, as news of Nazi concentration camps plays
on the radio in the background. Part of Havis’s hope was to keep
costs down to make the play more attractive to theater companies.
Jewish humor plays strongly into the play, especially in
the first half. “I like Jewish humor because it references many
things about the Jewish experience, such as suffering, wills and cultural
paradoxes,” Havis says. “It’s humor that sends mixed
messages with a punchline and I love that.”
Says Salovey, “It asks several of the most profound
questions that theater can ask: Can we be redeemed through our suffering?
How can a person gain sight through experience? What kind of legacy can
we pass to our children? These are all profoundly Jewish questions.”
One element of the Yiddish version that Havis kept is the tension
between religion and secularism, which is appropriate given Salovey’s
and Havis’s vastly different levels of Jewish observance. “Todd
is more religious than I am,” notes Havis. “I’m more
ambiguous when it comes to contemporary Judaism. But working together,
we complement each other’s strengths.”
The final product follows Havis’s views more closely
than Salovey’s. “In this version [and the Yiddish version],
Cordelia is more secular, while the father is more religious,” explains
Havis. “In the end, Cordelia becomes a liberalizing agent and helps
her father more toward secular enlightenment.”
The play has already had two small readings. In both cases
actor Stephen Macht played the Lear role. Macht is best known as a regular
on TV’s “Cagney & Lacey” and “Knots Landing”
and from roles in such films as “The Raid on Entebbe” and
“Tracers.” Macht is currently studying to be a rabbi and has
a passion for creating Jewish theater pieces. He once commissioned Havis
to write a play for him about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“What I love about this script is how Allan works in
his belief that we’re all connected, and the way to find that connection
is through service to others,” says Macht, a Beverly Hills resident.
“And now that I’m getting older and have five grandchildren,
I want to concentrate on what’s important in life, which is what
the Lear character does.”
Macht will again play the title character in a June 1 reading
at the Lyceum Theatre. Armin Shimerman, who played “Quark”
on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” will play the Fool, a role
he also played in the Rep’s production of “King Lear.”
Salovey is so happy with the finished version of “A
Very Jewish King” that he hopes it will be part of the Rep’s
2006-’07 season. In many ways, this script does exactly what Salovey
envisioned when he dreamed of recreating the glory of the Yiddish theater
with a Jewish version of “King Lear.” It shows how the themes
of aging, family conflicts and living a selfish life are indeed universal
throughout time, in all countries and in any language.
“Allan is an extremely poetic writer – in some
ways, a contemporary Shakespeare… In the first half, he captures
that incredible Jewish humor and wit. Then he turns the story into a very
serious and heartfelt, mysterious story of a man’s transition from
[emotional] blindness to sight. The result,” says Salovey, “is
a powerful story with profound themes of Jewish culture.”
A VERY JEWISH KING
When: Wednesday, June 1, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Lyceum Theatre, 79 Horton Plaza, Gaslamp
Tickets $15 for general audiences, $12 for students/seniors. For more
information, call (619) 544-1000 or visit www.sandiegorep.com.
For feedback, contact editor@sdjewishjournal.com.