MYSTICISM AND MISCHIEF
This extraordinary show from Kadimah Yiddish Theatre, based on Isaac Bashevis Singer’s story (and absolutely not with the Streisand movie ending) – drove Sydney Opera House audiences and critics wild. And this adventurous little theatre is an obvious place for the UK premiere, with its gift for finding Jewish-related plays both light and devastatingly dark. But this is the first time Marylebone has plunged so joyfully – surtitles and all – into the curious judaeo-German-Hebrew-Slavic-Aramaic Yiddish language and also, barring one golem in The White Factory, the first time it has gone so deep into the weird, mystical tale-telling world of that tradition.
And – full disclosure – there was a point in the first half when I thought that it demanded slightly too high a tolerance of two things: Talmudic picturesquery, and the often tiresomely intellectualized “queer theory” which is lavishly pointed up in the programme. But I give in. It’s rather wonderful: intelligent and wild and wise and, especially in the second half, profoundly touching. It’s springingly alive, so L’chaim to it!
Bashevis Singer’s central story of Yentle the 1870 “Yeshiva boy” is timeless, and for women a vital, enlivening one. Our heroine is desperate for the deep study of Torah and Talmud which only males study, but “a learned woman is an abomination” and women are for breeding , kitchen and marketplace . So when her father dies she dresses as a boy, becomes a loyal study-partner to Avigdor, who has no idea. While pleading his cause with the lovely Hodes, Yentl under her new name finds herself the object of the girl’s adoration. Think of Twelfth Night, Viola, Olivia and Orsino. Or of the constant interpretation of male and female behaviour by a disguised Rosalind in As You LIke It.
But here there is no easy way out: even when it would be possible for Yentl to confess she cannot bear to, because she needs this learning, godliness and mystery for her own sake. And you don’t get more feminist than that. There is a devastating moment when she admits her sex to Avigdor, taking off her top to show her breasts, but cannot bear not to reach out and put the tasseled prayer-shawl, the Tallit, back on. Not for modesty , but for sheer need. It’s about prayer.
Amy Hack is extraordinary in the role; when she speaks or sings in Yiddish hairs stand up on your neck. But she always conveys the trapped , baffled but determined reality of a young girl, and there is comedy in the awkwardness of finding herself a ‘man among men`’ , in settings where boys wistfully talk of sex and swim naked. Ashley Margolis’ Avigdor is perfect too, and Genevieve Kingsford, the most deeply baffled of the three, a graceful presence as Hodes. But the whole is framed, often narrated, by Evelyn Krape as “The Figure:: ancient, dishevelled, wild and bawdy and mischievous in several characters and arguments, yelling and laughing, donning goat-horns, primitive in sexless power.. From the opening moments The Figure expresses old mysticisms: the completeness of God who contains both male and female, so Yentl is a kind of flawed, biologically impossible image of that perfection. Except that of course we are in an Ashkenazi shtetl in 1870, not heaven and eternity, and there is biology to contend with. And despite it she does marry Hodes, and the Figure brandishes a bloodstained wedding sheet . But then as reality kicks in the poor bride is pleading for her ‘man’, demanding ‘he” come to her bed more often as the holy books prescribe. And meanwhile Avigdor yearns for her, but at one point embraces his “bruder” , until he discovers the truth .
Hence the “queerness” theme much talked up: two apparent men together, two real women together, one Yentl being both male and female: a reproductive conundrum but real love and a quest for mystical completeness. Around it all the often alarming Krape cavorts, addressing us with glee . It’s staged in often dim light, sometimes with sudden sound, always with a lucid narrative and clarity of emotion from the central players.
In the theological arguments there is plenty to chew on – fascinating to hear the sin of Adam and Eve explained as the snake being deliberately “made by God because the fruit needed to be eaten”. That chimed weirdly in my convent-girl head with “O Felix culpa” and the medieval chant `’blessed be the time that apple eaten was”.
But even without all that, the central story of a girl in disguise is universal and inspiring. It’s Viola and Joan of Arc and Margaret who became James Barry to train and become a miltary surgeon. It’s sweet Polly Oliver and all the lasses who followed their men to the war in breeches. You can set aside modish queer-theory and trans-politics, and be reminded that at the heart of the story is the ancient outrage of women being excluded from learning and mental growth. And the determination of women who decided that no, this just won’t do…and wore the trousers.
marylebonetheatre.com. to 12 April
rating 4
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