The panto Yankl and the Beanstalk had its world premiere at the Pleasance Theatre in London, England, in 2025. This year’s Chutzpah! Festival shows will be its premiere not just in North America, but outside London.
If the name sounds familiar, playwright Tamara Micner – who lives in London but is from Vancouver – introduced Yankl to audiences here several years ago.
“In 2022,” Micner told the Independent, “we were developing Yankl and the Beanstalk – the characters, the story, the use of Yiddish, and what it meant to be making a queer Jewish pantomime. Participating in rice & beans theatre’s DBLSPK residency, in partnership with Chutzpah!, was incredibly supportive to our development process, giving us time and space to explore the Yiddish in the show and how we would weave this with English.
“The show is now ‘finished,’ as much as any piece of theatre can be!” she said.
“Yankl and the Beanstalk takes audiences to the Jewish immigrant communities of East London in the 1890s, into the Daisy Pickle workshop,” reads the description. “Our protagonist Yankl finds himself in a bit of a pickle when his cousin Milly wants them to go on strike against the greedy Lady Mayfair and the Giant. With his bar mitzvah just days away, Yankl needs to work on his parasha, help his cousin try to improve their working conditions, and not get in a pickle, all while his lustful mother is looking for someone new to be her date. With the help of some magic beans, a pickle fairy, some popular songs, including a rousing rendition of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ translated into Yiddish and a scandalous amount of camp, this duo will find a way to stop the Giant and seize the means of production.”
“As someone on the Jewish left, in London, I think the East End of the 1880s-1950s is a kind of gan-eydn (paradise) that many of us yearn for and carry in our hearts, minds and spirits,” Micner told the Independent. “In the same way that we may romanticize ‘the old country’ (di alte heym) and wish we could somehow be back there or experience it, I think many Ashkenazim on the left are nostalgic for those places and times where Jews spoke Yiddish, were politically engaged in progressive struggles, and lived more closely to how we did in Eastern Europe. Of course, as in the old country, there was antisemitism, there was poverty, there were all sorts of struggles. Still, I grieve the loss of language, culture, minheg (tradition), community. So, this time and place are things I wanted to bring to life and celebrate in this show. It’s something I think we can be proud of.”
Micner started learning Yiddish in 2019. Since then, she has learned more about Yiddish theatre and seen several productions: Jacob Jacobson in Paris, Yentl on tour in London from Melbourne, Fiddler in Toronto, and some of Di shvegerins / Les belles-soeurs in Montreal. She is one of the co-founders of the Shpilers – “London’s first Yiddish theatre company in about 30 years,” she said.
Yankl is Micner’s first panto.
“Something I like about this genre is that it’s both fixed and flexible,” she said. “There’s a hero, a villain, a dame (the hero’s mum), a fairy and other archetypal characters, and, in the end, the ‘goodies’ win and the ‘baddies’ lose. (In this sense, it’s very Christian.) Pantos typically draw from a handful of fairy tales, such as Cinderella, Robin Hood and, of course, Jack and the Beanstalk!
“In addition to exploring what a queer Jewish panto could be, I was interested in the creative challenge of working with a set genre, and seeing how I could bend it. As they say, creative restrictions can be a gift.”
That said, every performance is different.
“Much of the show is scripted, but there are moments throughout when the actors improvise with each other or speak directly to the audience, inviting particular responses,” said Micner, who will also be giving a Chutzpah! workshop on translating pop songs into Yiddish.
“The music in Yankl includes original songs (‘Simkhe’), Yiddish translations of pop songs (like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’), existing Yiddish songs (‘Zol shoyn kimen di geile’) and medleys of pop songs in English,” she said. “I think this reflects the mix of influences in the show – Ashkenazi culture, pop culture, musical theatre, Yiddish theatre and the English panto tradition.”
Participation in the workshop doesn’t require any knowledge of Yiddish.
“Our aim is to have mixed-level groups that include complete beginners, intermediate and advanced speakers, working together to translate a song,” said Micner. “We will encourage people to choose part of a song, or a shorter or simpler song, to focus on…. When people already know the melody, it makes it easier to learn the song in another language.”
There will be two performances of Yankl and the Beanstalk at Chutzpah! The Nov. 14 evening show is for adults only (16+), and contains mature content and explicit language. The Nov. 15 afternoon show is for all ages (5+) and is described on the festival website as “the PG/Kosher version … [that] retains the same joyous, raucous, queer Jewish panto spirit.”
The cast list for the Chutzpah! shows is Nay Oliver Murphy, Ann Marcuson, Demii Lee Walker, India Lewis and Katie Shalka.
“Yankl is fun, silly and a bit mishige [crazy],” said Micner. “With the growing popularity of the East Van Panto at the Cultch, we know that more and more people are getting into this form of theatre. We are very excited to share Yankl with the community, and grateful to Chutzpah! for the opportunity.”
For tickets and the full Chutzpah! schedule, go to chutzpahfestival.com.
