By Carol Davis
LA JOLLA, California–UC San Diego’s School of Theatre and Dance is mounting a very aggressive rendering of S. Ansky’s The Dybbuk translated by Joachim Neugroschel with direction under the firm hand of Joshua Kahan Brody. One might ask why The Dybbuk? One might even question why a two and one half hour long show that could have told the same story in perhaps two hours, was decided.
Today’s audiences are rather fickle about sitting that long. Give me a ninety-minute, no intermission show and I am as happy as a kid in a toy store. But I digress and I confess; no one left during intermission. This production is performed by college students and is directed by MFA graduate director, Joshua Kahn Brody. His goal: to examine and see what it looked like to be a Jew during those days.
In his message, Brody notes that Jews are defined by many images. It’s not just by the clothes they wore in those days or by the stereotypical Shakespeare’s Shylock. It’s how they fit into and interact with other Jews. This play has only Jewish characters and takes place in a small shtetl where most of the action happens in their synagogue since the synagogue was always at the heart of every Jewish community. It also requires a Jewish exorcism that I found fascinating to watch unfold. As a bonus, Kabbalah or Jewish Mysticism is on display as well.
According to director Brody, he hopes the production will appeal to all religions, Jew and non-Jew alike. He also hopes it will ‘be respectful of the original time period and cultural origins of the work …and represent the drama, the beauty and the meaning of the play (that light shines through every human being) with fidelity and passion’. It seems to do just that.
Ansky, or Shloyme-Zanvi Rappoport, who was born in 1863, was a man of many distinctions from poet to social activist to ethnographer to emergency aid worker. His contemporaries were the great Jewish and Zionist literary pioneers of the 20th century. His experiences as an ethnographer would turn out to have a great influence for and appreciation of Jewish Folk Lore. It was during this period, 1911-1914 that he wrote The Dybbuk in Russian and then translated it to Yiddish.
When biblical scholars discuss anything it’s complicated. There are always, at minimum, as many sides to a discussion as there are scholars sitting around the table discussing them. And this is where picks up and we meet three young scholars chatting, chanting and praying. In the background a rabbi is listening in and observing. For the next half hour or so they go on about this question: Why, oh why, did the soul descend from the highest height. The greatest fall contains the upward flight.
If the above sounds like a riddle, it is. The text in the script that follows this axiom examines the riddle from all sides. It is long winded and convoluted, and of course, with a moral attached to it.
Our story begins to divert now with the appearance of a young religious and mystical scholar and prodegy, Khonen (Jack Mikesell is excellent) looking for his true love, Leah (Taylor Shurte turns in a phenomenal performance). He is ushered in during the discussion, announced by the Messenger, (stunning and effective Jennifer Putney). He has been gone from this village for some time and most of the scholars are surprised to see him.
Khonen is convinced that his and Leah’s souls were joined together in eternity because of a promise made between the two fathers, before their children’s respective births, to wed one another. The fathers were college students at the time. Years later when the two young people were students themselves, they met over dinner at her father’s home and become smitten and believe they are soul mates forever.
Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to Khonen, Leah’s father, Sender (Daniel Rubiano is most convincing) had dismissed his promise of wedlock between the children because Khonen was a poor man and he wanted his daughter to marry a wealthy man. When Khonen, who was away studying Kabbalah, comes back to his shtetl and learns from the scholars of her fate, he falls dead in despair.
I don’t want to say the story of The Dybbuk is complicated, it is and it isn’t. The premise is pretty simple, but the journey along the way isn’t: Following a brief visit to the cemetery, on her wedding day, to invite her deceased mother’s soul to her wedding, Leah finally gets to see her intended whom she imagines to be Khonen. When Leah refuses to marry the man her father has chosen for her, she cries out, “You are not my husband.” Then, a man’s voice (read Khonen) comes from her mouth saying, “I have returned to my predestined bride, and I shall not leave her”.
In Jewish folklore a Dybbuk is an evil spirit believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person. In Hebrew it means attachment or cling to. It is a restless soul or evil spirit that enters a living person…creating a separate personality for itself and speaking through that person.
Her father, fraught with apprehension and grief goes to Chief rabbi, (Gabriel Lawrence outdid himself) to have this Dybbuk exorcised from her body. And so it was between Leah and Khonen.
Aided by an ensemble of very talented actors who are unfailing in their efforts to remain in character (especially on the small playing space of the theatre where they are just about inches away from the audience) and a design team that could compete with any for profit theatre, The Dybbuk is well worth a look-see.
Surrounded by what one could take as stained glass windows with familiar Hebrew letters and words painted in browns, yellows and off white colors, set designer Kathryn Lieber left no mistake that she did her homework. Three steel catwalks are mounted on the sides and in front of the playing space walls for more access, and a small version of the Holy Ark resting on the floor of the bema seemed plausible, but I’m not an historian. The beautiful Ner Tamid or eternal light (Kristin Hays lighting design is an important addition especially during the passionately induced exorcism) completes the picture.
What blew my mind though were Mary Rochon’s wonderfully colorful and textured, somewhat risqué and authentic looking kaftans, kippot, black hats and streimel for the chief rabbi. For the Messenger, Jennifer Putney’s wide range of costume changes from flowing multicolored hooded robes to a mini, mini Jane of the jungle look at the end of the production are stunning. Leah’s ruffled dress that allowed for her to essentially wrap herself into a cocoon during the exorcism is perfect and Khonen’s chain draped look along with the fading grey to white outfits of the Greek Chorus surrounding/helping Leah during the exorcism, are imaginative and effective.
The production is a bit too long but tense and dramatic enough that demands our being there. And as for the answer to my earlier question, ‘Why this choice?’ I get it now! Pay attention.
See you at the theatre.
Dates: Nov. 10-12 & 15-19
Organization: UC San Diego/Theater & Dance
Phone: 858-534-4574
Production Type: Drama
Where: 9500 Gilman Drive, MC 0344, La Jolla, CA 92093
Ticket Prices: $20.00 general admission
Web: theatre. http://theatre.ucsd.edu
Venue: Theodore and Adele Shank Theatre
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Davis is a San Diego based theatre critic. She may be contacted at carol.davis@sdjewishworld.com