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Saying Kaddish
With My Sister
The Jewish Ensemble Theatre invites you to enjoy the
compelling and often hilarious family encounters in the
world premier of Allison Luterman’s Saying Kaddish With
My Sister. Underwritten by a generous grant from
The MASCO Corporation Foundation, the play will have four
preview shows beginning Tuesday, January 22nd,
2008 and an opening night performance at 8:30 pm on
Saturday, January 26th. The outrageous
comedy will run through Sunday, February 17th.
Leah Smith and Teri
Clark Linden as the sisters
Saying Kaddish With My
Sister is a funny
in-depth analysis of familial truths that affect so many of
our lives. In this tale of sibling rivalry,
compassion, and family values, Oprah/God (Rhonda English,
Southfield, MI) introduces Lorraine, the empathetic,
deceased mother (Milica Govich, Birmingham, MI), her
conflicted daughters Lydia (Leah Smith, Detroit, MI) and
Rachel (Teri Clark Linden, Dexter, Mi), and Max (Loren Bass,
Ann Arbor, MI), her dying husband.
In spite of the play’s title,
be prepared for laughs as humor propels the surprisingly
honest exchanges among the members of the Horowitz family.
You’ll eavesdrop when they recall the triumphs and
disappointments of their past and you’ll be transported to a
time outside-of-time to heaven’s waiting room, where Oprah
Winfrey reigns.
The sisters,
Lydia
and Rachel, are as opposite as can be: one is an Orthodox
Jew having just been forced out of her home in
Gaza, the other, a quirkily dressed
performance artist.
Saying Kaddish With My Sister is a wonderfully
imagined play that was performed last year as a staged
reading in JET’s Seymour J. and Ethel S. Frank Festival of
New Plays where it received rave reviews.
Allison Luterman is an award
winning poet, playwright, and essayist. She mentors
troubled youth and conducts writing workshops. Her
work has been published in Radiance, The Sun, the
East Bay Express, SF Chronicle and Response.
Artistic Director: Evelyn Orbach
Director: Nicholas Callani
Stage Manager: Harold Jurkiewicz
Scenic Designer: Eric Maher
Lighting Designer: Elaine Hendricks-Smith
Costume Designer: Mary Copenhagen
Prop Designer: Diane Ulseth
Cast:
God/Oprah: Rhonda English,
Southfield, MI
Lorraine: Milica Govich,
Birmingham, MI
Lydia: Leah Smith, Detroit,
MI
Rachel: Teri Clark Linden,
Dexter, MI
Max: Loren Bass, Ann Arbor,
MI
The
Jewish Ensemble Theatre,
a
professional theatre, is a Michigan non-profit corporation.
JET receives grants and support from the
Chrysler Foundation, the
DeRoy Cultural Arts Fund, the Henry S. and Mala Dorfman
Family Foundation, the Max M. Fisher Jewish Community
Foundation, the Stephen, Nancy and Sam Grand
Philanthropic Fund, the Jewish Women’s Foundation,
the Kresge Foundation, the
MASCO Corporation Foundation, the Michigan Council for Arts
& Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, the
Shubert Foundation,
the Ben N. Teitel Charitable
Trust, and the Detroit Jewish News.
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Tony Award Nominee
MAX WRIGHT |
The Detroit
News Review - Thursday,
October 18, 2007
GRADE: A
'Songs'
is music
to the soul
By Lawrence B. Johnson
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Those sad lyrics are best buried,
those old songs of love lost and pain past
endurance. Those old wicked songs.
That poignantly spun phrase was coined by the
19th-century German poet Heinrich Heine, though
devotees of art song more likely associate it with
Robert Schumann's setting of Heine's verses in a
cycle called "Dichterliebe," or "Poet's Love."
Observing Heine's words through the exquisite
prism of Schumann's music, playwright Jon Marans
beheld the whole of human suffering and asked: What
does it mean to live with scars on the heart, the
soul, the body -- not merely to survive, but truly
to live once more?
Marans came up with a layered but essentially
optimistic answer in his 1996 play "Old Wicked
Songs," which has remained vividly with me since I
saw it in London's West End shortly after the
premiere. Now the Jewish Ensemble Theatre has
re-created this two-man show with all the wit, edge
and ambiguity that made such an impression when the
play was new.
The premise is straightforward enough. In 1986, a
brilliant young American pianist goes to study
accompaniment with an elderly, rather eccentric
teacher in Vienna called Josef Mashkan. Actually,
the pianist, Stephen Hoffman, is there against his
wishes. The master he really wants to work with has
insisted he spend some time first with Mashkan. But
the larger reason the kid is there at all is that
he's burned out, his artistic drive, his ability to
practice, the joy of music itself, all gone.
Schumann's "Dichterliebe" is open on the piano,
so Mashkan suggests they start with that. However,
to his surprise and annoyance, the pianist isn't
invited to play, but to sing. And so begins a
contentious venture in which the uptight young
American learns about breathing and the breath of
life -- and in turn forces his teacher to face his
own secret torment.
As the
addled but earnest teacher, Max Wright offers a
performance that's richly textured, funny and wise.
And Daniel Kahn answers with a well-gauged
progression from presumptuous smart-aleck to
understanding -- about breath and life and the
profound possibilities that both imply.
Evelyn
Orbach, JET's founding artistic director, directs
this show. Only when you stop to consider its
seamless, effortless fluidity does her invisible
hand reveal itself.
Lawrence
B. Johnson is a Detroit-based cultural writer and
critic.
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