New Yiddish Rep

It's been a long time between posts. In a couple of days we leave for Paris and another festival. We'll be performing Vartn Af Godot at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, in the shadow of Notre Dame, in a city that has been under attack, in a country deeply embroiled in the burgeoning "refugee problem."

I've been a refugee, and the phrase "refugee problem" has an all too familiar ring to it. So I look at the video clips of people who have lost everything, living in camps and hoping that someplace will take them in and I feel like the only thing I can do is go to Paris and perform Vartn Ah Godot. It may not be much, it won't feed a single homeless child, maybe it will only help me to delude myself that I've actually done something. Martin Luther King said, that at the end of the day what we will remember is not the invective of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. At the very least I can say that I wasn't silent, that I and my colleagues will raise our voices through what we know best: the transformative power of theater. I hope we will be heard by our brothers and sisters in the Jewish community and all the people of France. In our small way we are here to stand with you.

Since Vartn Af Godot  is a play about refugees, and the current situation is the greatest crisis of its kind since the Second World War, it seems as if the opportunity to play it at this time and in this particular place was bashert.

Put yourself in the other guys shoes. We are you.