Stage: Folksbiene Gives Aleichem's 'Stempenyu'
Yiddish Production is Sensitive, Absorbing
by Richard F. Shepard

What beats one fine production of Sholom Aleichem in a New York Yiddish theatre season? To answer a question with a question: how about two? And that's what we have with the opening on Wednesday of "Stempenyu" by the versatile Folksbiene Playhouse in the Central Synagogue's commodious auditorium at 123 East 55th Street.

Following the Yiddish writer's "Hard to Be a Jew," which opened earlier on Second Avenue, we do indeed have  season of Sholem Aleichem in mamaloshn, the mother tongue. "Stempenyu," done in Yiddish, with no concessions to non-Yiddishists, except a story outline in the program, is a thing of beauty, a sensitive and absorbing comedy with music and a sad ending, or maybe a tragedy that moves merrily to its finale. Well, either way, that's Sholem Aleichem, and more power to him.

This new production retains the flavor or East Europe and, under Shmul Bunim's creative direction, it combines wonderful tableaus of old-country scenes (oh, those beautiful faces) with a mobility of dance and pace that make the show fly by.

What's it about? Stempenyu is a fiddler who plays at weddings (not the Plaza, the kind they used to have over there). He is a robust fellow (Michael Varshaviak, who usually works with the Hebrew-speaking Habima, plays the title role admirably). He has an eye for the girls while being married to a shrew (Ruth Vool is a fine henpecker, but he falls in love with a demure, nice girl (Diane Cypkin is a model of modesty) who is married to a dull fellow (Moishe Rosenfeld, and you won't find better zhlub-casting). The two plan to run off, against her better judgment, but she dies, and Stempenyu plays his fiddle contemplatively forever after.

All this is done with such rare humor and music (composed by Dov Seltzer and heard on tape) and dance that one feels he is looking in on a long-gone shtetl. Jacob Zanger plays a badkhan, the master-of-ceremonies at those old weddings, and he also reads from the pages of Sholem Aleichem to move the story along, a comic role he carries off beautifully.

Among others in this cast are Joshua Zeldis and Dov Gotesfeld, as wild musicians, and Zypora Spaisman and Sarah Stabin, who, along with Miss Vool and others, play tough village women who make women's liberation positions seem like a toning down.

"Stempenyu" plays Saturdays at 8, Sundays at 2 and 5:30. See it.