By Eric George Tauber
SAN DIEGO — If you are looking for something Jewish this holiday season, the Dybbuk for Hannah & Sam’s Wedding will feed your soul like pickled herring on rye. We walk into the reception hall for Hannah & Sam’s wedding complete with a gift table, guest book and a trio of klezmorim playing Beatles and show tunes. This is Master Klezmer Yale Strom of Hot Pstromi. VIPs are seated at small round tables and treated to slices of wedding cake. Champagne is available for two bucks a flute.
Enter Ron Campbell as “Crazy Uncle Jerry.” He’s the new patriarch of the Schwartz family since the passing of his brother, the groom’s father. He’s clearly had a few and he insists on toasting the happy young couple. Ron is famous for his one-man shows, most notably The Thousandth Night, R. Buckminster Fuller and Shylock.
To set the mood for his story, he asks the klezmorim to play “something from the mystic darkness of the Jewish past.” Thus, he brings us to a wooden shul in the old country where the walls are wet with tears, where you half expect to open a door and discover a golem.
The story of the Dybbuk comes from this world. Derived from the Hebrew word “da-book” (דבוק) meaning “attached”, a “dybbuk” (דיבוק) is “a spirit of a dead person that attaches itself to a person on Earth” (ref: New World Encyclopedia). The person may have died with unfinished business or a major ax to grind.
“What happens to people who leave before their time?
What happens to the life they didn’t get to live?”
Chonen, a young but frail yeshiva bocher (religious student) has been delving deeply into Kabbala (Jewish mysticism). When his prayers and spells fail to match with Leah, he dies of a broken heart. One the night of her wedding, his ghost “attaches” itself to the bride. What’s a father to do? Kabballah masters are called in to summon the “righteous deceased” from the “true world” to testify in a religious court.
A highly animated storyteller, Ron gallivants about the stage, inhabiting no fewer than eighteen different characters, each with his own voice and body language. A simple piece of cloth is used to represent prayer shawls, a wedding veil, babushka … etc. And a simple napkin turns his hand into a beggar woman in some of the most brilliant found object puppetry I’ve ever seen.
But don’t just come to the Dybbuk because it’s something Jewish in December. Come hear a compelling tale brilliantly told by a master storyteller. The Dybbuk for Hannah & Sam’s wedding will attach itself to your soul.
And then come back to the Lyceum to celebrate Hanukkah with Yale Strom and Hot Pstromi on December 21st at 7:30. For more information, check out www.sdrep.org.
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Tauber is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. He may be contacted via eric.tauber@sdjewishworld.com
Great review which does the tour de force performance of Ron Campbell justice, not to mention the lighting effects which were very innovative and interesting.
Thoroughly enjoyed the production and the music.