A picture is worth...

Didi and Gogo will have to wait a little longer, although they've had a very eventful day. The crew went on a tour around Paris, making a stop at the Tour Eiffel, and not missing the opportunity to take photos and frighten tourists. A little Beckett in the Park if you will. Thus we moved on to the cemetery at Montparnasse, paying our respects at Beckett's grave, leaving behind a bouquet of carrots. Last on the trip was a visit to Beckett's old apartment, with a mailbox containing the family name written on it by the man himself. Our time in Paris is drawing closer to an end as we conduct our final evening show of the festival and the penultimate show overall, leaving just one more to be had on Saturday morning. We hope you come and join us for an outdoor performance! A gute nacht! 

Didi, Gogo, and Pozzo are off on a tour of Paris, The Eiffel Tower, Beckett's grave, and sundry other points of interest. Maybe we'll get some pictures.

Well, shut my mouth! Today's show was packed, with a great mix of age groups from teens on up. The feedback is as good as it gets. From Yiddish speakers to theater professionals here for the festival, the glowing reaction is overwhelming. Tomorrow is off, for St. Patrick's day, of course. Two shows left.
So now we start thinking about Dublin.

Only 3 more shows. So far the hordes of Yiddishistn and our Ashkenazi brethren have not descended upon our intimate venue. Bur we have had very appreciative audiences. Last night Yitkhak Naborski, head of the Medem Library attended, and was, I thought quite impressed.
Our indiegogo campaign has faltered. I was happy to see a $10 donation. Of course, I appreciate all our donors, its just that seeing a couple of hundred $5 and $10 donations would make me feel real good. There must be more than 81 people interested in perpetuating dramatic Yiddish theater. We're still only half way to our goal and can't afford to come back in the red. So please, nudge your friends and family, to quote Pozzo, "heeeelllllp!"

Yurodny, Irish klezmer band led by Nick Roth (Sax)  joined us for a set of their fab sound on opening night. 

Last night we were once again privileged to have Edward Beckett in the audience, most gracious, as he was in Enniskillen. He remarked on how appropriate Yiddish sounds for the piece. People are digging it.

      Rafi Goldwasser          Ben Rosenblatt        David Mandelbaum     Edward Beckett         Moshe Yassur    Shane Baker           Issac Segal          Ata (super-titles)

Shane Baker levitating his hat before our first show in Paris. 

Our very intimate venue was packed. A large number of Yiddish speakers, I am very happy to say. Walter Asmus came all the way from Berlin. It was a good beginning, beyond my expectations. Ben Rosenblatt was fabulous as Pozzo, and Isaac Segal gets better and better as the boy.

We are at the point where we can show up at a venue in the morning, and do the show that evening.

We’re in Paris. The city adopted by Beckett as his own. I look for him on the streets, a tall, gaunt, figure, dressed in black. I know he’s here somewhere, taking long slow strides and smiling at the thought that we will be performing “Godot” in Yiddish. He’ll be at every performance.

Tonight we attended a reception at the Irish Embassy, a grand mansion near the Arc d’triomphe. Actors, writers, dancers, sculptors, all of them very gracious and looking forward to seeing our show. Anne Atik Arikha, whose husband painter Avigdor Arikha and Beckett were close friends, told me that “Sam would have been delighted to have it played in Yiddish. It was a pleasant couple of hours.

I was speaking to one of the Irish actors about Yiddish theater and he said to me that it was primarily known for musicals. Well, who can we blame but ourselves for giving him that impression. The much touted exhibition on Yiddish theater at The Museum of the City of New York ends with Funny Girl and Fiddler on the Roof. New Yiddish Rep isn’t represented at all. Perhaps because we don’t do musicals.

Have had no contact yet with the Yiddish/Jewish community here. Although I’m not surprised, i must admit I’m disappointed. I was told by the festival’s line director that she has been contacted with inquiries about the show. Perhaps we will be pleasantly surprised.

I can’t wait to get on stage.

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.