Playwright tells story behind ‘Mikva’ Musical

 

By Toby Klein Greenwald

EFRAT, Israel — More than twelve years ago, a friend of mine, Myra Gutterman, came to me with a creative new idea. She had decided to record and transcribe the experiences of balaniot (mikva attendants) and of women who use the mikva (ritual bath), to be performed as a show for women. She called it The Mikva Monologues and invited me to join her in the project, as director and co-producer/editor.

We worked on it through the years, on and off, as we were both busy with other projects. Finally we decided its time had come, and met intensively to finish the script. But a line that Myra suggested one day made me say, “That sounds like a lyric!” We looked at each other, and at that moment morphed it from The MIkva Monologues to Mikva the Musical, Music and Monologues from the Deep, that includes parodied songs, and original monologues and dialogues.

But God had other plans. I was diagnosed with breast cancer, so we were on hold again for a year. When my operation and treatments were over and we began again, Myra came to my home once a week. We’d edit, write the parodies, and she’d cook lunch. A great deal!

As we auditioned and head-hunted actresses and singers, I realized this would be one of the most meaningful theater projects of my life. I knew it would be something extraordinary. And that defined it all the way.

Everything about it – the subject matter, the cast, the women in the audience who react and share their own stories afterwards – is rich and moving, inspirational and funny, and sometimes heart-wrenching. Every woman who has ever been to mikva has a story.

We perform the show as open-book salon theater, a unique performance concept I learned from Ronda Spinak of Jewish Women’s Theatre in Los Angeles. We see the mikva through the eyes of self-conscious brides (some with comical experiences), a new mother, a convert, and women who have experienced challenges, such as hydrophobia, infertility, and more.

We hear the stories of a woman who became paralyzed from the waist down from an epidural, yet maintains a wonderful attitude to life (she tells her own stories on stage, with both drama and humor), of a woman who discovers her breast cancer while dunking at a lake, and of a woman who dares a dip in the cold ocean while on a romantic vacation.

We intentionally chose a cast and crew who, in addition to being excellent at what they do, are religiously eclectic. Both Myra and I feel passionately about building bridges and uniting people from diverse communities and viewpoints. Many of Israel’s English-speaking theater troupes are religiously mixed, but we’re the first ones to deal with such an intimate, religiously sensitive topic, and the discussions we had around the rehearsal table were as deep as the final product.

As director, I didn’t just hand the cast scripts and say, “Learn your lines.” The actresses became a part of the process, and contributed to it exponentially through their input and personal stories (some of which appear in the show), and we have bonded as a loving and supportive group.

Casting Michele Thaler, our eloquent disabled actress, opened our eyes to the challenge of finding accessible homes and buildings in which to rehearse. There is always space for rent if one can afford it, but we were on a modest budget, so we turned to friends with ground-floor homes, and to friendly organizations, like Gesher.

Laya and Alan Lurie of Katamon, Jerusalem, graciously hosted us for the first show on August 27^th, and we’re happy to accept invitations to other communities. We’ll be performing in Jerusalem on Succot, at the home of Fayge (Phyllis) and Professor Carl Posy, and after that in Efrat and Hashmonaim. (Details will be on our website: www.mikvathemusical.com.)

Our donors, so far, are five women from the Five Towns, who are passionate about this topic. We hope to come to the U.S. to perform. Our cast are professionals – though they’re taking very modest salaries for this project.

We started as a small private enterprise, so Raise Your Spirits Theatre (www.raiseyourspirits.org) is graciously hosting us under their non-profit aegis, with their blessing. It was a natural match, as half of our cast and crew have worked with them or currently work with them. Two of our Mikva team – actress Yael Valier and myself – are co-authors of a Raise Your Spirits play, JUDGE! Song of Deborah, that we performed in 2010 in English and will be performing again in February, 2019, for the first time ever in Hebrew (with English surtitles above the stage), in Jerusalem and elsewhere.

Our Mikva cast includes Adina Feldman, an internationally acclaimed singer and choreographer, who also contributed significantly to the staging, Riva Schertzman, a pianist who studied composition under an opera composer, an actress who originally performed in the West End of London, another actress who also directs her own theater company, and an actress who is also a balanit (mikva attendant) and teacher of the laws of family purity to new brides. We built bridges through stories, music and mikva.

One of the revelations in this production is the extent to which women will go to perform the mitzva of mikva. This is phenomenal. It shows how deeply this mitzva is in their souls. We’d like to see conversations opened about some of the issues we raise in the show, and I’d love to see more women be inspired by it to go to mikva, including those who don’t view themselves as Orthodox. We can offer specialized evenings for specific groups – for new brides, or for women dealing with infertility or miscarriage, or post-mastectomy, which has issues of self-image.

As the day of our premiere grew near, I felt a sense of fear and trembling, and every night before I went to sleep, I added to my prayers, “Please, dear God, help me so that everything I do is for the sake of heaven.”  I think that for our entire team, this is about bringing something meaningful to the world.

The Reactions

After the show, we held our breath, awaiting the reactions of the audience, as we knew that some of the material was avant garde and the audience was composed of mostly (but not only) Orthodox women. They were exuberant. There was a stimulating discussion with questions, personal stories and excited feedback. Here is just a taste of the written feedback we received:

Yehudit Jessica Singer, Marketer and public relations, Koren Press: The production showcases women’s creativity and innermost thoughts and feelings about the most personal, intimate ritual in Jewish life – something that we all do, but hardly anyone talks about openly. It was raw, honest, funny and eye opening – all at once. Every Jewish community needs to see this production and more importantly, discuss the messages that the monologues address.

Pnina Mor, CNM PhD, Coordinator of the NOGA clinic in Shaarei Tzedek, for women at high risk for breast cancer: I want to applaud you on a fantastic musical play… It reminded me that years ago I wanted to do something with the narratives of BRCA mutation carriers. Maybe someday I will get you interested.

Ilana Dreyer of Jerusalem: What an amazing show! (And I’m a gal who lived in Manhattan for 30 years and saw any number of off Broadway productions).…for me “Mikva the Musical” brought to the stage the richness, messiness and humanity of every aspect of being a woman, and the amazing support that can potentially come from the mitzvah of mikva. Kol HAKAVOD.

Dr. Naomi Marmon Grumet, Founding Director of The Eden Center: This show raises important conversations about a range of aspects of going to the Mikvah. It combines the funny, mundane scenes we are all familiar with, and touching situations which show how it can be difficult and a window into somebody’s real pain.

Annie Orenstein, Co-founder of ‎Spotlight On Women, English Project Coordinator at Emunah, Jerusalem: It was really beautiful, thank you! I especially connected to “Lump at the Lake,” “Stand by Me,” “Nothing”, and “Reclaiming Mikvah” was very powerful.

Paula R. Stern, CEO Write Point, Ltd.: I loved the cast, the place, the dynamic, the relationships. The speed dunking in Aruba was wonderful because I had a speed dunk in the harbor in Croatia that will remain one of my best memories … Michele Thaler’s story… took the audience from horror at what happened to her [being paralyzed] – to laughing because she allowed us to laugh…

Fern Reiss, CEO, JewishSpeakersBureau.com: Poignant and hysterical.

Here are some excerpts from a letter we received from Professor Susan Handelman, author and lecturer at Bar Ilan University in English Literature and Performance Theory:

“Something extraordinary happened at the Premiere Performance of Mikva The Musical. Something entirely new for Jewish women and Jewish life was born into the world.  The material is explosive.  The Salon Theatre format also leads to a special intimacy and openness— of women sharing from a very deep place and allowing themselves to be vulnerable — both the audience and the actresses. An intimate community was created between the audience and the actresses. The performance was a tour-de-force, a delicate walk on a tightrope…The show displayed the full complexity of emotions, the range of experiences of all kinds of women with gentility, sensitivity, humor, wisdom and love.  You related to and conveyed the material in a deeply spiritual way that encompassed all its raw honesty, pain and passion.  Everybody’s mask dropped, just as when a woman is in mikvah…It was brilliant to invite audience members to share their reactions and stories after the performance. Those stories from the audience were as heart stopping as those in the show. Michelle Thaler’s performance of her own experiences of what it’s like for a disabled woman in a wheelchair to use mikveh astonished everyone. To see her onstage… and feel that rock solid center of her soul moved everyone deeply…And how in the world, did she also make us laugh and be funny with it all? This is spiritual greatness. It was a zechut to watch her. Malka Abrahams is a Pro. What voice and articulation; what verbal control of every nuance of tone and language…Adina Feldman was clearly sent to you by HaShem. She is an extraordinary professional singer, actress, and dancer…It was Broadway level…The music was a wonderful way of counter-pointing, underscoring, harmonizing the monologues…it helped the audience absorb and integrate all the intense material. Sarah Landman [who is also a balanit and kalla teacher] did an especially beautiful job with the infertility monologue. Each of those actresses balanced and complemented the others; each was different in tone and style. I could feel the intimacy between them that had been created by working together with this material, like a magnificent string quartet. Yael Valier offered a different kind of energy and style:  raw and earthy… The timing for this show is so appropriate…Maybe there was a reason it took 12 years. Thank you for your warmth, your love for Torah, your unique abilities to reveal ever deeper lights of Torah, to give expression to the soul of Jewish women, to give them comfort, challenge, hope and humor, to strengthen Am Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael. Being at the performance was just what I need for ELUL and what we are attempting spiritually in this month— a process of tahara and elevation. Just as a woman emerges from the waters of mikva purified and new, so did I feel as I left the performance.”

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Toby Klein Greenwald is a journalist, playwright, poet, teacher, and the artistic director of a number of theater companies. She is the 2018 recipient of the Lifetime Achievement award from Atara – The Association for Torah and the Arts for “dedication and contributions in creative education, journalism, theatre and the performing arts worldwide.”