By Carol Davis
SAN DIEGO– This year the North Coast Repertory Theatre is mounting Aaron Posner’s adaptation of Chaim Potok’s My Name is Asher Lev on Sunday, June 26 as part of the Jewish Art Festival’s program. The show will officially open on June 4 and the final performance is June 26 at the North Coast Repertory Theatre.
Asher Lev is a young and gifted artist who happened to have been born a Hassidic Jew. His father is a Rebbe, the leader of Ladover Hasidic Community. He is an artist who paints controversial, some say blasphemous, paintings. The play reveals the conflicts that arise between religion and art and the internal and external struggle experienced by a brilliant young artist and his need to explore his artistic drive and the divide that eventually casts him aside from his religious community.
I took the opportunity to chat with Artistic director David Ellenstein via email and we talked about the play and his thoughts and his involvement:
CD: What drew you to this particular play?
DE: The struggle of an artist to reconcile that all consuming calling with the rest of the world. Potok’s literate and detailed writing. My experience with The Chosen having been such a good one. It speaks to universal questions of family, faith, and dedication.
CD: Asher Lev is not an easy guy to figure out. What’s your opinion of him? Any comparisons?
DE: Well, he is an all consumed artist. Sometimes that makes him do things that appear selfish and insensitive to others. The play and the novel are his justification/defense/statement of why he does what he does and is who he is. This is a portrait of this particular individual and that path that he must take. It is certainly not everybody’s path. Certainly some of his behavior raises issues for discussion.
CD: Both you and your Dad, (now passed) were/are a part of the artists lifestyle although different venues. As a Jew, do you think that lifestyle interfered or acted in concert with your religious beliefs, if any and how?
DE: Both my dad and I are non-religious Jews, so there is no conflict here – I do not share that dilemma with Asher. He needed to break free in order to create his art – I did not have that same kind of burden, as I was supported in my endeavors.
CD: In the scheme of things why do you think this particular play is so important to you? And how do you compare it to The Chosen and The Promise in the order of importance. Or doesn’t that matter?
DE: Well, I’m not sure that matters. This play stands alone – it is an individual’s struggle to find his truth and his place in the world. To find where God speaks through him. It is far different than his families or his ancestors. It is important to me because it resonates themes of being an artist/being a person/being true to your passion and calling. It is also extremely well written.
CD: You also mentioned that you would be playing three roles. How did that come about and is it written that way?
DE: I am actually playing four roles. That is how the play is written – for three actors. It creates a theatricality of style that opens the intimacy with the audience. They are participants with the actors who create the different characters in front of their eyes with a hat or coat change. I play the father, the uncle, the Rebbe, and the teacher. Crystal Sershen plays the mother, the art dealer, and the model. Craig DeLorenzo plays Asher.
CD: ‘Asher Lev’ was done at a reading during the Jewish Art Festival and now it is going to be shown as full production at the 2011 Jewish Art Festival. I don’t remember seeing it. I’m guessing the response from the Jewish community was positive. But what questions, if any, did those outside the community have? If you remember.
DE: Yes – people at the reading found it fascinating and compelling – many many voiced their hope that we would stage it. It certainly prompts discussion of family protocol and privacy, artists license, and the value of constraints and bonds placed on the faithful.
CD: Is there anything you would like your audience to know about this show that they should particularly look for or at?
DE: The theatricality of its nature. The “happening” sense of it occurring in the moment – and so profoundly accessible for personal identification from an audience. One of Potok’s greatest legacies is the humanization of the Hassids. They cease to be cult like outsiders, and become human beings whose traditions and beliefs become vivid and real.
CD: What lessons do you think we will take away from the experience of seeing this highly sensitive play? After all, it could be an affront to several religious groups. Are you concerned about that?
DE: No. If it an affront, then perhaps that is good. If my father taught me anything about Judaism it is that Jews always question. That is extremely healthy. Asher Lev opens the door for questions and discussion – if we can’t discuss difficult and sensitive issues in art and theatre, we can’t expect them to be tackled anywhere else. It is part of our job as artists.
CD: Will there be a talk back night by the cast during the run of the show?
DE: We always have a talkback the first Friday of the run – in this case June 10. We will also have a talkback on the Sunday evening that is part of the Lipinsky Family Jewish Arts Fest on June 26.
CD: David, if there is anything else you would like us to know about the production in particular, can you share that now?
DE: Being the director and one of the actors is an extremely tricky balancing act. Not sure I will do it again. I just felt that I needed to be the director and didn’t want to miss out on playing these great roles. I am very happy to have Chris Williams as my co-director.
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San Diego Jewish Arts Festival Celebrates Chai
SAN DIEGO — It’s hard to imagine that the San Diego Jewish Arts Festival will be eighteen years old this year. It’s even harder to imagine how much it has grown, as every idea does, over the years. My first experience with the Festival was when it was a one-day affair downtown San Diego at the San Diego Repertory Theatre. I still have the poster I bought Jerusalem, City of Eternal Peace, painted by Raphael Abecassis hanging on my living room wall.
The San Diego Repertory Theatre, quite unique in its inclusion of all walks of art life, first introduced the Jewish Arts Festival in 1993 and never looked back. Since 2003 the Lipinsky Family has underwritten this, now expanded festival that takes place throughout the San Diego area including The San Diego Repertory Theatre, The North Coast Theatre in Solana Beach, Chabad Hebrew Academy in Scripps Ranch, the Encinitas Library in Encinitas, the San Marcos Library in San Marcos and at the Avo Playhouse in Vista. Since its inception, Todd Salovey, has been the artistic director of the Festival.
In 1996 and 2000 Evoke Dance Theatre performed The Soul of a Young Girl: Dances of Anne Frank, Yale Strom and his Hot P’Stromi Klezmer group have been a part of the festival since I can’t remember and will be back again this year. Last year Strom and Jon Malashock’s dance company presented a new work Malashock Dance with Yale Strom; a work in progress with an additional piece from Malashock’s Tribes (that I loved).
Mark Harlelik’s The Immigrant, Lional Goldstein’s Mandate Memories; Chaim Potok’s The Chosen; Old Wicked Songs by Jon Marans and last year a new musical The Show Across the Street presented by Teatro Punta y Como was shown on the Lyceum Stage and Hershey Felder who was on center stage at the Old Globe (as part of the festival) as Gershwin and Beethoven are but a few of the events of past years.
As stated above, My Name is Asher Lev Aaron Posner’s play adaptation of the Chaim Potok book is part of the Chai Lipinsky Family San Diego Jewish Arts Festival. Other festivities include: Jewish Children’s Music Festival; The Witches of Lublin, Blessings and Curses, Klezmer Summit, Compulsion, Gustavo Bulgach, more Klezmer and a second showing of The Witches of Lublin in the North County.
The festival includes music, dance, theatre, food and community. For more information check out the web site listed below.
Enjoy!
See you at the theatre.
Dates: May 22 through June 26.
Organization: Lipinsky Family San Diego Jewish Arts Festival
Phone: 619-544-1000
Web: www.sdrep.org/extpage3.aspx
Venue: throughout the county
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Davis is a San Diego-based theatre critic. She may be contacted at carol.davis@sdjewishworld.com