A History of The Folksbiene
The Rise of David Levinsky
by Isaiah Sheffer
1976-1977 Season
Central Synagogue Auditorium
123 East 55th Street
New York, NY
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From left: Jacob Rechtzeit and Moishe
Rosenfeld
Courtesy of YIVO.
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From the right: Philip Yucht, Tamara Reed,
I.W. Firestone, Elias Patron,
Dina Walden, Sol Migdal, Gladys Levy, Zypora Spaisman and Jacob
Rechtzeit.
Courtesy of YIVO. |
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The Cast of Characters: |
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A review for this play appeared in
the New York Times of November 23, 1976: |
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Stage: Yiddish
'David Levinsky' Begins the Folksbiene's Season
by Richard F. Shepard
The Yiddish Folksbiene
Playhouse opened its season this weekend with "The
Rise of David Levinsky," a musical that will be
running Saturdays and Sundays at the Central
Synagogue Auditorium, 123 East 55th Street, until
spring.
It is a simple,
charmingly well-done production, the first done in
many years, perhaps ever, in translation from the
English, first from an English-language version
created last year by Isaiah Sheffer and Bobby Paul
(who wrote the music) and translated for this
presentation by Zvee Scooler, and ultimately from
the 1917 novel of the same name by Abraham Cahan.
Cahan was the great
editor of the Yiddish daily, Forward, but he had
also worked on English papers and his fiction, not a
great success as a novel, remains a perceptive
first-hand account of the immigration at the
century's turn from old Russia to the Lower East
Side.
The play is related to
the novel, but it is by no means an adaptation of
it. it differs in many ways. This is not a drawback
unless you go there expecting to see the original
fleshed out. It's better this way. |
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Essentially it's not a comedy,
this story of the Vilna Talmud student who becomes an
arrogant and opulent cloak-and-suiter ending his days with
recognition but no love. Yet it is told lightly, and you
walk out remembering the comedy rather than the storyline
tragedy. This is the quintessential immigration yarn.
First, the reading of letters
from "New York" explaining uptown and downtown. The English
course: how to explain imperfect and perfect tense. How to
fob off creditors. All the how-to's.
The songs are mostly
enjoyable, even catchy: "The Shopping Waltz," in which
Levinsky and a woman discuss prospective brides, and others
that tell you the general tenor of the show: "Credit Face,"
"Ready-Made, the Garment Trade," "If You're Sharp," and "The
Boarder" (this one sung in her wonderfully, comic-dry style
by Zypora Spaisman).
The cast is admirable. Jack
Rechtzeit makes a believable tycoon, sometimes hateful,
sometimes pitiable, out of Levinsky as an older man, and
Moishe Rosenfeld is the very model of a scrawny, shy young
Talmudist, the youthful Levinsky.
Mr. Scooler, Joshua Zeldis,
Miss Spaisman, Sandy Levitt, Cara De Silva, and all the
others make this slice of life a fresh and living serving as
staged by Mr. Sheffer. Daniel Michaelson's settings are
spare, yet eloquently suitable for the work at hand. |
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