Yuk Yuk’s co-founder Mark Breslin is excited to be entertaining Jewish Vancouverites at Temple Sholom’s annual spring fundraiser May 6.
“I can’t get enough Jews in my life,” he told the Independent. “I’m married to a Catholic woman but I’m a Jew through and through. Any time I can talk about Jews and Jewishness, and my unique views on that, I jump at the opportunity because comedy is the jazz of our people. That’s how I express my Jewishness in the biggest way, not by keeping kosher or going to Israel each year, but through comedy.”
Breslin opened his first Yuk Yuk’s location in 1976. Today, he has 15 Yuk Yuk’s franchises across the country, has published four books, produced programs for television and radio, and appeared in theatrical productions. He’s a sought-after public speaker and, in December 2017, he was awarded the Order of Canada.
“Comedy is not usually something people respect, so it’s gratifying that some bureaucrats in Ottawa see what I’ve done with my life and think it has value,” he said. “But all the people I’d like to lord this over are dead now.”
Those people include a high school principal who informed Breslin he was a menace to society, as well as his aunts and uncles, who refused to attend his shows “because they thought I was wasting my life.”
Back when he started Yuk Yuk’s, Breslin said he received no support or encouragement from the people closest to him. “My mother was a child actress in the Yiddish stage in 1920, so you’d think she would be thrilled about what I was trying to build in comedy, but instead she was appalled by it right to the grave. My father was more ambivalent. He respected Yuk Yuk’s as a business and was proud of me, though he didn’t find the comedy funny. Even my friends thought I was nuts.”
When he began the first Yuk Yuk’s location, in Toronto, Breslin said his main goal was to avoid law school. “I thought I’d do comedy for a couple of years and find something else to do when it ran out of steam,” he admitted. “I never thought it would become my life!”
Initially, the Toronto Yuk Yuk’s was known as “that Jewish club,” because the names of the performing comedians were all Jewish. “When standup started, it was a very Jewish thing to do,” explained Breslin. “A lot of the comedians at that time were my friends from high school or university, and they gravitated to Yuk Yuk’s because they knew me.”
Today, standup is a mainstream phenomenon and Yuk Yuk’s is no longer known as a Jewish club. One thing that’s remained unchanged from the get-go, however, is Breslin’s insistence that his clubs be uncensored. “I’ve never censored an act in the 42 years I’ve been in business,” he said. “Being uncensored is important because the clubs are small enough that no one can control them. We have an obligation to be the official opposition and, these days, it’s more important than ever.” While he conceded that most comics exercise their right of free speech to talk about sex, not politics, he said, “Still, the opportunity is there.”
Yuk Yuk’s has two locations in British Columbia: Abbotsford and Vancouver. The Vancouver club opened in 1988 and is located on Cambie Street, near City Hall. It’s always been a success, said Breslin. “I measure success by some level of profitability, but also by how impactful our product is on the wider community and on comedy in general,” he said.
Among the comedians who got their start at Yuk Yuk’s are Russell Peters, Jim Carrey, Howie Mandel, Mike Bullard and Gerry Dee.
Breslin said that, on May 6, at the Temple Sholom event, he plans to talk about how each Jew has their own unique form of Jewishness and how we treat our culture as a Chinese buffet, picking what we want from it.
“I’m going to talk about the golden age of Judaism, 1950 to 1975, when it was cool and sexy to be a Jew,” he said. “I’ll try to figure out what happened between then and now, and why we’re a people in need of a good PR person. I’ll also reveal a lot of fun stuff about my life, my family and things I’ve done, relating that to comedy in general and what it means as a Jewish art form.”
For event details, visit templesholom.ca/inspired. The evening at Performance Works on Granville Island is titled Inspired to Act and includes comedy, music by Adrienne Robles and Liel Amdour, and the 2018 Tikkun Olam Youth Awards.
Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.
A scene from Vancouver Opera’s production of Eugene Onegin. (photo by Trudie Lee)
“I’ve sung a lot of Russian, and I love it,” Jewish community member and opera singer Leah Giselle Field told the Jewish Independent. Field will have a lot to love at this year’s Vancouver Opera Festival, which starts next weekend.
Russian White Nights, the second annual Vancouver Opera Festival, celebrates Russia’s luminous midsummer nights. Among the festival offerings is Eugene Onegin, based on the classic of Russian literature by Alexander Pushkin, which was turned into a lyric opera with a libretto co-written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky with K.S. Shilovsky. The festival will also feature the première of The Overcoat, an opera based on Nikolai Gogol’s famous short story, as well as Requiem for a Lost Girl, an original chamber musical collaboration that explores themes around homelessness and violence towards women.
According to the press material, Eugene Onegin – which plays April 29 in the afternoon, and the evenings of May 3 and May 5 – promises “breathtaking music [and] choreography, lavish orchestrations and compelling arias.” Field will be playing the role of Larina, the mother of the two main female protagonists of the story, Olga and Tatyana.
“The libretto includes portions of the original verses of Pushkin,” Field said, noting that the score is one of her favourites. “Tchaikovsky originally thought it would be blasphemy to make Pushkin’s poem into an opera, but eventually he agreed. I love the Pushkin poem the opera is based on as well – it’s so environmentally evocative, it is so Russian, and it takes you into right into that environment.”
A number of Russians feature in the cast, including baritone Konstantin Shushakov (Onegin), soprano Svetlana Aksenova (Tatiana) and tenor Alexey Dolgov (Lensky). This new production has been created in collaboration with Calgary Opera and is directed by Tom Diamond and conducted by Jonathan Darlington. Eugene Onegin will be sung in Russian with English surtitles projected on a screen.
In addition to Eugene Onegin, Field will participate in a chamber music performance of Dmitri Shostakovich’s From Jewish Folk-Poetry Op. 70 on May 4, 5 p.m., at CBC Studio 700. This song cycle was written in 1948 by the Soviet composer, who initially wrote eight songs that were meant to reflect the hardships of being Jewish in the Soviet Union. In order to disguise this sensitive material, Shostakovich added three more songs depicting the “great life” Jews had under the Soviet regime. Despite these efforts, the censors were not fooled and refused to approve the work – it could not be performed until after Stalin’s death in March 1953.
On the lighter side, Field will also appear in a family-oriented original adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, a student performance co-produced by Vancouver Opera and Delta School of Music on May 5, 1 p.m., also at CBC Studio 700. The production is one of four offerings aimed at children and/or teens on the festival’s Family Day.
Vancouver Opera general director Kim Gaynor, also a member of the Jewish community, is in her second season at the organization, which she came to after years working the festival circuit in Europe. Gaynor told the Independent that she has modified the Vancouver festival quite a bit from its first year, trying to take a more “out of the box” approach. This includes a more diverse and daring program with a mixture of classical and contemporary works, and the inclusion of chamber music. The festival will also include three films: the silent film Man With A Movie Camera on April 28, the 2001 CBC production of The Overcoat on April 29 and 1965’s Dr. Zhivago on May 1.
The festival starts on April 28 with an outdoor celebration at Queen Elizabeth Theatre Plaza that features Russian cultural performers, food trucks, market vendors, a circus presentation, a movie screening and a patio bar. Festivities that day will get underway at 2 p.m., and a highlight will be the re-creation of the pinnacle of white nights celebrations in Russia that evening. A 40-foot schooner with scarlet sails will serve as the stage for acrobatics, music and custom-designed projections on the 22-foot-high sails in a performance suitable for all ages. Scarlet Sails will also be offered April 29 and May 3 and 5.
The Vancouver Opera Festival runs to May 6. The full program and more information can be found at vancouveropera.ca.
Matthew Gindin is a freelance journalist, writer and lecturer. He is Pacific correspondent for the CJN, writes regularly for the Forward, Tricycle and the Wisdom Daily, and has been published in Sojourners, Religion Dispatches and elsewhere. He can be found on Medium and Twitter.
Magician Stephen Kaplan entertains at last month’s Empowerment session. (photo from Jewish Seniors Alliance)
On March 21, the Jewish Seniors Alliance, in partnership with Temple Sholom Seniors, once again brought the community a magical program of laughter.
In the program, which was the second in the 2017/18 JSA Snider Foundation Empowerment
Series with the theme Laughter and Music: Feeding the Soul, magician Stephen Kaplan delighted the audience of more than 100 people with his energy, sense of humour and enthusiasm.
Kaplan introduced himself as “the Maestro of Magic” and, as such, he said he conducts the magic that is within us all. Combining interactive entertainment with jokes and surprises is what he loves to do – and he does it so well.
The audience was shrieking with laughter and wonder. How did he guess that Heather’s first boyfriend’s name was Peter? How did he guess that Lila was thinking of the city Winnipeg? And how did he guess that the card that Bonny picked was a seven of diamonds? Did he really guess all that? It doesn’t matter. As a finale, he took a section of the Vancouver Sun, tore it into pieces and, within seconds, put it back together.
Gyda Chud, his preschool teacher, introduced him beautifully. Was she the one who instilled the charm and magic in him? Kaplan made sure that every one of the attendees left the program with a big smile.
The afternoon began with greetings from Bill Gruenthal, Arthur Gutman told some jokes and led the audience in Passover songs, and Ken Levitt, JSA president, encouraged people to join the JSA, if they hadn’t already.
Two more Empowerment sessions on the theme Laughter and Music are coming up: Perla’s Music Workshop on April 17 with Congregation Beth Israel, in conjunction with the Jewish Family Services’ Seniors Lunch program; and Music for Our Hearts and Songs We Love on June 25, with the Kehila Society in Richmond. For more information, visit jsalliance.org or call 604-732-1555.
Tamara Frankel is a board member of Jewish Seniors Alliance.
Michael Wilkinson, left, and Kurtis D’Aoust in Royal City Musical Theatre’s Cabaret, which plays at Massey Theatre until April 29. (photo by Emily Cooper)
The musical Cabaret is a classic in the English-speaking world. Since its Broadway première in 1966, it’s been staged multiple times in many countries, and its acclaimed movie version of 1972 won eight Oscars. This April, Royal City Musical Theatre (RCMT) brings the show to New Westminster’s Massey Theatre.
“I saw the Cabaret movie many years ago, but it’s quite different from the stage musical, which I saw for the first time on Broadway in New York, starring Alan Cumming, in 2015,” actor Michael Wilkinson told the Independent. “The Broadway production was spectacular; not only is the show filled with great songs and dance numbers, but the various storylines were, and are, timely to current events that we’re seeing around the world today.”
With music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, the show is loosely based on the book Cabaret, written by Christopher Isherwood.
“Taking place in Berlin [in 1931] just before the Nazis came to power, Cabaret demonstrates how there was an increasing presence of far-right wing politics, which is not dissimilar to some of the political movements we’re seeing in the United States,” said Wilkinson, who is a member of the Jewish community. “It provides a stark reminder of how we need to stand up for those who are most vulnerable in society.”
In the RCMT production, Wilkinson plays Victor, one of the performers at the cabaret. Victor is a dancer, singer and waiter, Wilkinson explained. “As Victor, I spend most of the play singing and dancing in the ensemble numbers, as well as serving and fooling around with the patrons. It’s a fun role, and many dance numbers are very energetic.”
Unlike most members of the cast, Wilkinson doesn’t see his professional life revolving around theatre. “I actually am not studying acting,” he said. “I did study theatre for one year right after high school in New York at NYU. However, after an amazing year, I decided that theatre school was not for me, so I returned to Vancouver. I’m currently one year away from graduating with a bachelor of arts from UBC’s Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice. I would love to work in arts marketing or management, but I am also very passionate about youth education.”
For him, theatre is a beloved hobby, although he did want to be an actor as a child. “I grew up taking theatre and music classes, which I loved. I went to the fine arts theatre program at Lord Byng Secondary School,” he said. “I participated in school plays. I also participated throughout high school in many community and professional theatre productions across the Lower Mainland. And I’ve continued to do so into adulthood. I love to do theatre in my spare time, and companies like RCMT provide a great opportunity for this.”
Being in a musical is ideal for the young performer.
“I started playing violin when I was 5 and I played oboe in my high school band, so music has always been a part of my life,” he said. “Musicals just seemed like a natural genre for me to fall into when I became interested in theatre. I love being in big musicals, like Cabaret. RCMT is a great company because they present big musicals every year, which is not something that every theatre company is able to do. This is my fourth show with RCMT. With them, I’ve had lots of fun in the smaller featured roles or as part of the ensemble.”
Over the past several years, Wilkinson has performed with many theatrical companies in Vancouver. In addition to RCMT, he has played in shows put on by Theatre Under the Stars, Awkward Stage Productions, Gateway Theatre, Bard on the Beach, and Footlight Theatre.
“Most of them have been non-paying [roles], which was fine growing up and going through high school,” he said. “I never expected to get paid at that age. However, this year, RCMT introduced an actor honoraria, which is very helpful to offset transportation costs. While this is certainly not the case for many other cast members, I’m not at a point where I’m looking to make a living from doing theatre. I have two other part-time jobs, my UBC classes and rehearsals, so [being in] shows that do not pay, or at least not very much, works for me.”
The timing of a show is more important to him than the financial side, because he has to juggle his schedule. This is why he doesn’t go to auditions very often. “I only audition for productions that I would really want to be in and that I know I can commit to, in terms of rehearsals and performance dates,” he said.
He enjoys everything involved in putting on a show. “I love the rehearsal process,” he said, “because it is so exciting to watch a production come to life with all its elements: music, choreography, scene work, props, costumes, sets and lights, and eventually the audience. It is also great to get to know a new group of actors as we come together to work on a production. The Vancouver theatre community is quite small, so there are usually some familiar faces, but every cast kind of becomes a family for the duration of a show – some of my best friends I’ve met through theatre. And, of course, performing the final product in front of the audience is always very exciting.”
Wilkinson is not sure yet what his future holds, or even where he will be after graduation. “I’ve lived in Vancouver my whole life, minus my one year in New York,” he said. “Vancouver is home, but if a really great job presented itself outside of Vancouver, I would never say no. I’m also interested in doing my master’s degree at some point, so that may involve a move, as well. I think it’s important to be happy in whatever we’re doing, so that’s how I try to guide my education, work and theatre to balance in my life.”
Cabaret opened at Massey Theatre April 12 and runs until April 29. For tickets and information, visit royalcitymusicaltheatre.com.
Olga Livshin is a Vancouver freelance writer. She can be reached at olgagodim@gmail.com.
Richard Newman and Gina Chiarelli in Bar Mitzvah Boy, at Pacific Theatre until April 14. (photo by Damon Calderwood)
The number 13 means different things to different people. To a baker, it’s that extra pastry that he adds to a dozen; to the superstitious, it’s considered bad luck to the extent that some buildings do not have a 13th floor. To a Jewish boy, it means his right of passage into manhood, a journey fraught with both angst and joy.
But what if you missed that momentous occasion, for whatever reason, and now, as a grandfather, as your grandson’s bar mitzvah approaches, you have an urgent need to have a bar mitzvah ceremony? This premise forms the basis of local playwright Mark Leiren-Young’s Bar Mitzvah Boy, a two-hander being staged at the intimate Pacific Theatre in Vancouver until April 14. It won the American Jewish Play Project’s prize for best new Jewish play last year, with successful staged readings in New York, Boston and Charlotte, N.C.
Joey Brandt (Richard Newman) is a successful Vancouver divorce lawyer who wants to study privately with Rabbi Michael (Gina Chiarelli) in order to have his bar mitzvah before his grandson’s big day. He is surprised to learn that she is female, and even more surprised when she refuses him as a student, suggesting that he join Cantor Rubin’s bar mitzvah class instead. Joey is obviously a man used to getting his way and, not surprisingly, his stint in Rubin’s class turns into a fiasco, as Joey disrupts the class and takes all the boys out for Hawaiian pizza (you know, the kind that has ham on it). The rabbi eventually relents, in light of both Joey’s advocacy skills and a big donation to the synagogue’s renovation fund.
The chemistry between the two actors is palpable. The audience is led through a witty pas de deux, and both teacher and student experience personal metamorphoses through their weekly interactions. Joey – who has not been to shul for 52 years – learns to put on tefillin, as well as studying the liturgy and history of his people, in a crash course in Judaism. Meanwhile, the somewhat bohemian rabbi (she jogs and smokes marijuana – for “medicinal purposes” only) works through her own demons, which include an almost-12-year-old daughter with cancer and a husband who cannot cope with the illness. In an engaging twist, the professional roles reverse as the players grapple with the existential question of whether G-d is a metaphor or a real entity on which to base our faith.
Newman, who says that he is “Jewish on both sides” is stellar in his role as Joey (and his Hebrew is not too bad, either) but it is Chiarelli who steals the show with her sublime portrayal of a working mom having to deal with a sick child and an unsupportive husband. Kudos to Chiarelli, who is not Jewish, but who has mastered the dialogue and rituals of the script.
The set design is sparse but effective. One side is a backlit bimah with a lectern and a dove-shaped eternal flame hanging above. The other side does double duty as the rabbi’s study (replete with a library that includes Kosher Sex by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and the Kama Sutra) and Joey’s office. The costumes are simple and the music – klezmer, what else.
Leiren-Young peppers the play with local references that will resonate with some of the community audience – names like Cantor Rubin, Rabbi Solomon, Schara Tzedeck, the astronomical prices of the real estate – some contemporary quips about the Broadway musical hit Hamilton and singer Kenny Rogers, and a multitude of Jewish clichés. He is the master of witty repartee, as anyone will know who has seen his play Shylock, which was, most recently, at Bard on the Beach last year.
“I had a truly crazy bar mitzvah at the Beth Israel,” said Leiren-Young when asked in an email interview by the JI about his own bar mitzvah experience. “There was a snowstorm and my mom’s car was hit en route to the shul for Friday night services. After that, standing at the bimah
and singing was easy! I drew a lot of inspiration for this play from real experiences – a mix of my own and stories from friends – but I just realized I left out the snowstorm. Maybe that’ll go in the movie.”
As to whether or not you have to be Jewish to get the play, he said, “No more than you have to be Catholic to ‘get’ Doubt or Mass Appeal or Sister Mary Ignatius (three ‘Catholic’ plays I love). But there are definitely moments that will hit harder for a Jewish audience and, I suspect, there will be jokes only Jewish audience members will laugh at.”
It is somewhat ironic that the world première of this play is being held in the basement of an Anglican Church, but that is part of its cachet.
The audience take-away from any play is deeply personal but, as Joey says in his bar mitzvah speech at the end of this journey into his faith: today, I am a man here to honour my family and ancestors, to celebrate being a Jew and becoming a member of a community with all the rights and responsibilities that go along with that membership. And, to that, we say, amen.
For tickets, visit pacifictheatre.org or call the box office at 604-731-5518.
Tova Kornfeldis a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.
Arthur Miller’s Incident at Vichy is set in a Nazi detention centre in Vichy France, where a group of prisoners are being held. (photo from Theatre in the Raw)
Theatre in the Raw is bringing Arthur Miller’s Incident at Vichy to the Studio 16 stage April 11-22.
The play was chosen and recommended to the theatre’s board of directors in 2017, said Jay Hamburger, artistic director of Theatre in the Raw and director of the theatre’s production of Incident at Vichy. “It had been a piece that had been suggested previously as well,” he said. “But, with the recent political developments in the U.S. as well as worldwide, I felt that, as a theatrical piece, it spoke closely to issues today perhaps even more so than when it was written in the 1960s, and these events were behind the popular consciousness in some way.”
In Incident at Vichy, Miller – whose most popular plays include Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and A View from the Bridge – explores our moral responsibility to act in the face of intolerance and hate. The one-act play, which was first performed in 1964, is set in a Nazi detention centre in Vichy France, where a group of prisoners are being held. “Their unease, fear and confusion is stirred up as they contemplate what may divide or unite them. And what fate awaits them,” reads the press material.
Panel discussions will follow each performance and explore the question, Can it happen here?
“That is the overall and main question placed before the audience as well as to ourselves,” said Hamburger. “Can fascism, or a wave of totalitarian, racially dividing politics take place in Canada? We see fragments of such distressing political and socially oriented movements happening worldwide. Even in the U.S., so close to Canada, there are semblances of divide and conquer. Sadly, it seems to come from the current administration in Washington, D.C. This is cause for real concern.
“Now more than ever this may be the time to warn people that eternal vigilance is key to the well-being of our daily lives, especially given the rise of violent hate crimes against Jews, Muslims, South Asian and First Nations communities, even in Canada…. The play finds a way to touch on economic and class concerns related to the increasing gap between the rich and the poor. It notes that certain people are at an insurmountable disadvantage in seeking ways to survive. Certain characters in the play point out the way prejudices are manufactured and fomented, often condemning people because of misconceived notions concerning races of people, ethnicities or religions.”
Incident at Vichy doesn’t only examine how genocide can happen, however, but what people could do to prevent it.
“Each character in the play has their own experience and background in relation to being interrogated for being Jewish or perhaps seen as an ‘undesirable’ in some way,” explained Hamburger. “The play is basically a dramatized account of events that took place in 1942 in the unoccupied ‘free zone’ of Vichy France,” he said, and it presents many of the attitudes that “people had who weren’t quite ready to accept the extent of what was happening around them until it is completely undeniable – and too late.
“It also includes as an important aspect the perspectives of characters who are non-Jewish Germans, and Austrians as well,” he added. “It implores members of the society to not be complacent in the face of governments and demagogues that wish to grab power by lying and oppressing the large swaths of society.
“A question and statement is placed forward within the play: who is responsible for such horrendous acts of cruelty leading to genocide? At what point must one consider themselves also responsible? The play suggests it is for all in society to give a damn or have a sense of responsibility to such terrible events. There is an important act of human kindness in the play, but I won’t give away the ending here. But, obviously, Miller is writing about shattering events, with shreds of hope that a holocaustal deluge will not repeat itself, that such human massacres will not happen again.”
Audiences should come away from Incident at Vichy with some answers, but perhaps as many questions about the nature of evil, how we perceive it and deal with it.
“I think the play is trying to answer the question, How did things get so far out of hand without people rising up and stopping the madness?” said Hamburger. “The play tries to answer that question, even though you get the impression of how relentless the evil and suffering was once certain powers were in control and the momentum of a horrific madness got going…. I think the play insists that ordinary people are instrumental in realizing evil actions, without necessarily wanting to see the bigger picture themselves. Thus, a vigilant eye is necessary on governments and draconian racial laws implemented upon a citizenry. Such policies must be watched, debated and fought against in a fair and free manner without fear of punishment or reprisal.”
Theatre in the Raw artistic director Jay Hamburger directs the theatre’s production of Incident at Vichy. (photo from Theatre in the Raw)
Theatre in the Raw’s mission statement is on their website. Part of it is to be “risk-takers, willing to give exposure to voices seldom heard, striving for artistic excellence, in the presentation of unusual, awakening and exchanging theatre.”
“We are an independent grassroots theatre that has been in production and functioning for 24 years, residing on the Eastside of Vancouver,” said Hamburger. “We have produced comedies, tragedies, radio play works, original one-acts and full-length mainstage plays, as well as original and revived musicals of quality and enjoyment. Our process is to take the art of theatre and performance seriously and to present it first on a local level to Vancouver audiences and then beyond.”
The audition process for Incident at Vichy started seriously in early January and continued to the end of February.
“We saw dozens of actors (actually over 50 for weeks on end) that also included an extensive call-back set of days,” said Hamburger. “A few actors were called in to audition because I attended the unified general auditions that the Greater Vancouver Professional Theatre Alliance provides for theatre company members in the province. That proves an invaluable resource for those involved in the theatre arts.”
Rehearsals started at the end of February and will continue until the opening of the play on April 11 at Studio 16, which is housed in La Maison de la francophonie de Vancouver. “We are meeting three to four times a week, as well as individual meetings and sessions with each of the 15 actors cast in the show,” said Hamburger.
Incident at Vichy features some longtime Theatre in the Raw company members, he said, naming Roger Howie, Jacques Lalonde, David Stephens, zi paris, Brian Leslie, Stanley Fraser, Michael Kruse-Dahl and Ralston Harris. Hamburger is also part of the cast, as are Rob Monk, Julie Merrick, Daniela Herrera Ruiz, Laen Avraham Hershler, Giuseppe Bevilacqua and Simon Challenger, with Amanda Parafina as stage manager.
“We are fortunate to have such a dedicated and hardworking group of able thespians on the boards for the April run of the show Incident at Vichy,” said Hamburger, adding that fellow Jewish community member Cassandra Freeman also has been helpful.
“Cassandra has been an invaluable advisor and advocate for a number of years with Theatre in the Raw,” he said. “She has been a coordinator with the Tuesday night Vancouver Actor’s Drop-In sessions. We have cast at times from those evening sessions for some of our shows. She is a creative writer and has made the effort to report about Theatre in the Raw in a column or two she does for the press.”
Tickets for Incident at Vichy are $25/$22 and can be purchased from theatreintheraw.ca or 604-708-5448.
* * *
In his interview with the Jewish Independent, Jay Hamburger, artistic director of Theatre in the Raw and director of the theatre’s production of Arthur Miller’s Incident at Vichy, said, “A question and statement is placed forward within the play: who is responsible for such horrendous acts of cruelty leading to genocide? At what point must one consider themselves also responsible? … There is an important act of human kindness in the play, but … Miller is writing about shattering events, with shreds of hope that a holocaustal deluge will not repeat itself, that such human massacres will not happen again.”
Hamburger added, “The sentiment reminds and brings forth four related historical quotes that speak directly to significant parts of the play”:
“How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause. Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if, through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?” – Sophie Scholl, a member of the anti-Nazi White Rose group, who was executed for treason by the Nazis
“Of course, the terrible things I heard from the Nuremberg Trials, about the six million Jews and the people from other races who were killed, were facts that shocked me deeply. I was satisfied that I wasn’t personally to blame and that I hadn’t known about those things. I wasn’t aware of the extent. But, one day, I went past the memorial plaque which had been put up for Sophie Scholl in Franz Josef Strasse, and I saw that she was born the same year as me, and she was executed the same year I started working for Hitler. And at that moment I actually sensed that it was no excuse to be young, and that it would have been possible to find things out.” – Traudl Junge, one of Adolf Hitler’s secretaries
“I don’t believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone are guilty of the war. Oh, no, the little man is just as keen, otherwise the people of the world would have risen in revolt long ago!” – Anne Frank
“I’ve found that there is always some beauty left – in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you. Look at these things, then you find yourself again, and God, and then you regain your balance. A person who’s happy will make others happy; a person who has courage and faith will never die in misery!” – Anne Frank
Left to right: Yoo Ra Kang (Asaka, Mother of the Earth), Ricardo Pequenino (Agwe, God of Water), Alexandra Quispe (Erzulie, Goddess of Love) and Sari Rosofsky (Papa Ge, Sly Demon of Death) in Fabulist Theatre’s production of Once On This Island, which opens April 6. (photo by Tina Clelland)
None of us mere mortals is a god. But some of us get to play one on the stage.
Sari Rosofsky takes on the role of Papa Ge in Fabulist Theatre’s upcoming production of Once On This Island. Papa Ge is one of four gods who affect – for better and for worse – the life of the main character, Ti Moune, a peasant girl living on an island in the French Antilles.
“What I love about Papa Ge is she’s the evil one!” said Rosofsky. “Ever since I was a child, I’ve always loved the bad guys more than the good because I felt they had more depth and dimension to them, and they always had the cooler songs. I think what is the most challenging part of this character is how to be a villain without being crazy – while I still want to portray the darkness and depth Papa Ge has to offer, I want audience members to be drawn to her despite her being the bad guy. It’s a delicate balance for sure, but I’m certainly up for the challenge.”
Based on the novel My Love, My Love; or the Peasant Girl by Rosa Guy, the one-act musical (with book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty) “includes elements of Romeo and Juliet and Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid,” explains the press material. Ti Moune “uses the power of love to bring together the different social classes living on her island.”
“Right now, I’m auditioning for a wide variety of shows, as I want to do as much theatre as possible to gain experience,” Rosofsky told the Independent about how she landed her role. “I saw the call [for Once On This Island] and saw that the production team had some familiar names, and knew I wanted to work with them – the music director, Amy Gartner, was actually in a show with me at the time I saw this call. I approached her and asked about the auditions and she strongly encouraged me to submit. So, I did, but, sadly, the auditions were during a time when my show had some important rehearsals. Thankfully, the production team decided to have me audition during the callbacks when I was available, and had me sing for multiple roles, Papa Ge included. And the rest, you can say, is history!”
Traditionally, director Damon Jang told the Independent in an email, the role of Papa Ge is played “by a man, but portrayed by a woman in the Broadway revival version.” Rosofsky, he said, “was the best person for the part, so we cast her.”
According to her bio, Rosofsky has “a passion for the arts, whether that be in singing, acting or modeling.” In addition to starting voice lessons at age 12, she started auditioning for school plays. She won her first role in Grade 8 – as a sailor in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Her first musical came the next year, when she was part of the ensemble of Kiss Me Kate. She continued singing and acting through university, but did her degree in earth and ocean sciences.
Starting her sciences degree at the University of Waterloo, she finished it at the University of British Columbia. “While at UBC,” notes her bio, “she rediscovered her passion for musical theatre with the show Guys and Dolls, where she played Big Julie.”
Rosofsky has released two songs – “Save Me” and “Turn Around” – under the name Sari Rose. In her everyday life, she goes by the name Sari Chava Rosove. Rosofsky is her stage name, she said.
“My name alone is very difficult to pronounce for most people so I wanted to change it to something that rolls off the tongue slightly easier, but still maintain the uniqueness,” she explained. “It turns out my family already had this one taken care of for me – while Rosove is my legal last name, Rosofsky was the original family last name before they immigrated from Russia in 1901. They changed it to Rosove, as they were Jewish refugees and wanted to avoid antisemitism when they came to Canada. And so that’s where my stage name comes from, by paying homage to my roots.”
Rosofsky grew up in Seattle, where, she said, she spent most of her Jewish childhood at Herzl-Ner Tamid. “I went to Sunday school, along with additional after-school classes to prepare for my bat mitzvah, and, after that, I just kept going!” she said. “One of the most memorable things I did growing up at this synagogue was a program my mother actually ran, where a group of us would get together and make sandwiches that would be donated to a group that would hand out paper bag lunches to the homeless in Seattle. Of course, I also attended summer camp for a few summers at Camp Solomon Schechter.”
Rosofsky graduated from UBC in 2013, and then studied musical theatre at Capilano University.
“It’s a three-year, full-time program – and they truly keep you very busy,” she said. She attended Capilano from September 2014 to April 2017. “The entire program was so much fun. I learned a lot not only about the industry but about myself as a performer from some truly inspiring instructors.”
Recently, Rosofsky was in the ensemble for Merrily We Roll Along, put on by United Players, and played the wife in Draining the Swamp, by Curious Creations Theatre. “In between all of my endeavours in theatre,” she said, “I also dabble in competitive pole dancing which, in actuality, can be quite a performance! I competed and placed in my division back in October and will be training at Tantra Fitness for the upcoming competition in September, in between my other projects.”
Once On This Island is at the Red Gate Revue Stage on Granville Island April 6-14, 8 p.m. The show is approximately 90 minutes with no intermission.
The production is Vancouver’s first semi-professional cast of Once On This Island, according to the press release. Added Jang, “We wanted to cast based on the culturally diverse community of performers who make up Greater Vancouver and might otherwise be underrepresented in the city. We fully acknowledge that the story is a largely set in Haiti, but we wanted to use the story as a platform to address the more universal themes of love, death, and fighting against the class system. At the end of the day, these are storytellers telling a story.”
Amy Amantea and Jake Anthony in Sequence, which runs March 14-24 at Presentation House Theatre. (photo by Tim Matheson)
“To direct this play requires a willingness to grapple with the concepts, to accept that sometimes questions are more important than answers, not everything is answerable, and to be committed to entertaining possibilities. It’s heady stuff,” director Rena Cohen told the Independent about Sequence, which opens next week at Presentation House in North Vancouver.
Describing the play as “a science thriller that will challenge as much as it entertains,” Cohen, who is also managing artistic director of Realwheels Theatre, explained, “In Sequence, we follow two absorbing stories. In one, a professor confronts a student who’s defied probability by taking a multiple-choice exam only to get every answer – 150 of them – wrong (the chance of achieving this is one in a pentillion). In the second story, the ‘Luckiest Man Alive’ – his status cemented by his uncanny ability to predict the winner of the Super Bowl coin toss for 20 years running – is confronted by a young woman who claims to know his secret.
“Each of these narratives is presented coherently, cleverly and simultaneously, and it’s how they intertwine through ‘wormholes’ in the dialogue that makes the play fascinating, and mystifying. Playwright Arun Lakra compares the structure of the play to two strands of intertwining DNA. You could argue it’s comparable to a Möbius strip-like dramatic encounter. You’re following two narratives, only to have the carpet swept out from under you.”
For readers who don’t have Wikipedia or a dictionary handy, a Möbius strip, or band, is “a surface with only one side and only one edge. It can be made using a strip of paper by gluing the two ends together with a half-twist.” It’s a non-orientable surface, which means it “cannot be moved around the surface and back to where it started so that it looks like its own mirror image.” The example given for further explanation, is that “no matter what, a human right hand, cannot be rotated in such a way that it becomes a human left hand. The right hand is, therefore, orientable.”
How does one direct a play like Sequence so that it’s enjoyable and comprehensible?
“There are ways we harness the ‘language of theatre’ to capture audiences’ attention, to heighten a moment,” said Cohen. “Sometimes, it’s in the way an actor delivers a line, the way they land on a phrase containing important information. We also signal key moments using lighting and/or sound, so even if, when information doesn’t necessarily register on a conscious level, you absorb it.’”
The material of the play – “Wading into new intellectual territory, learning the mathematical concepts used to understand randomness and probability” – was initially a challenge for Cohen.
“My last physics course was in high school, the last time I studied math was in CEGEP [a post-secondary school program in Quebec] and I’ve never taken a biology course,” she said, “so some of the references in the play – regarding genetics, for example – may not be complicated to a Grade 10 biology student, but they’ve been a challenge to me.
“Sequence is also very fast-paced, and there’s a ton of stage business, most of which is – incidentally – performed by Amy Amantea, our actor who lives with blindness. She’s fearless.”
And, added Cohen, “Working with an integrated cast of performing artists with disabilities and able-bodied artists means there’s a wider range of experience, and we’re challenged to become an ensemble in a few short weeks.”
Krista Skwarok and Byron Noble. (photo by Tim Matheson)
Amantea (as the professor) will be joined in the performance by actors Jake Anthony (the student), Byron Noble (the “luckiest man”) and Krista Skwarok (the woman who purports to know his secret).
“Two members of the cast live with disability: Amy is legally blind and Jake lives with autism,” said Cohen. “The casting speaks to our (Realwheels’) commitment to fostering interchange between mainstream and disability arts sectors. That means interchange between artists, and we’re all learning from each other.
“Amy Amantea has such a generous spirit, so much heart and decency and, in Sequence, she’s playing a dark, angry character. Her character is also very funny and over-the-top, and this is new territory for Amy, who left the performing arts after she lost her sight 11 years ago. Furthermore, Amy’s character lives with severe sight loss, but of a type that’s different from her own, so there’s a whole other layer of challenge. She also has the most ‘stage business.’
“Jake Anthony is a sensitive actor, and an incredible advocate for persons with autism; getting to know him means gaining appreciation for the gifts that accompany autism,” continued Cohen. “Jake is a decisive and determined individual, very focused, so lovely and respectful to everyone, and he’s bringing tremendous insight into his character, a young man of faith, and an inveterate optimist.”
Skwarok is a recent graduate of Langara College’s Studio 58 theatre program, said Cohen, “and this is her first professional gig. Such bright energy, she’s super-smart and quick and creative and game. Expect to see a lot more of her – Krista’s talent is explosive.”
As for Noble, Cohen said he “is loaded with charm.” In Sequence, she said, his character “is slick, playful and, yes, he’s a charmer – and we get to see his character grow and other unexpected qualities emerge. It’s beautiful to watch. Byron is the most seasoned actor in the Sequence company, and we’re all benefiting from his experience and generosity.”
She said this play feels made for Realwheels “because it isn’t about disability, yet disability forms the landscape against which universal issues are debated onstage.”
She explained, “The four characters in Sequence are attached to their individual frameworks of the world: faith versus science, fate versus DNA. Did God use evolution as a means of creation? If something isn’t testable, how do you justify believing it? Is there an innate rightness to biological outcomes rooted in our fundamental DNA?”
Sequence has won several awards. The playwright, Lakra, is an ophthalmologist in Calgary, where he splits his time between practising medicine and writing, said Cohen. “This is the first time,” she said, “the play is being produced with an integrated cast – professional actors with disabilities playing alongside able-bodied actors.”
Sequence runs 80 minutes with no intermission, and is not suitable for children. It is at Presentation House Theatre March 14-24 (except March 19), with proceeds from the March 14 preview going to Realwheels Society to cover production costs. For tickets ($28-$10), call 604-990-3474 or visit phtheatre.org.
Left to right: Michael Rubenfeld, Mary Berchard and Katka Reszke in We Keep Coming Back, which plays March 13 and 14 as part of the Chutzpah! Festival. (photo by Jeremy Mimnaugh)
At first, we expected the piece to focus mainly on the past and how sad the absence of Jewish life in Poland is. After going and also spending more time in Poland, we now propose that it is through focusing on the present and future, with an aim at building positive perspectives, that will ultimately lead to transformation and genuine healing,” said Michael Rubenfeld about We Keep Coming Back, which plays at the Chutzpah! Festival March 13 and 14.
Rubenfeld created the multimedia work with Sarah Garton Stanley, as well as his mother, Mary Berchard, and filmmaker and translator Katka Reszke. Rubenfeld and Garton Stanley are co-directors of Selfconscious Theatre. We Keep Coming Back is based on a trip that Rubenfeld and his mother took to Poland in 2013.
“It was always our intention to make a piece of theatre and the trip was connected to a desire to explore intergeneration trauma and, also, more specifically, the problems in my relationship with my mother that stem from unresolved trauma and disconnect from our family’s roots in Poland,” said Rubenfeld. “So, the trip was an experiment of sorts; to see if going to Poland with my mother, visiting her mother and father’s hometowns and going to Auschwitz, would give us the opportunity to mourn together, which might also bring us closer together.”
According to a blog on Selfconscious Theatre’s website, after surviving the Holocaust, “Berchard’s family moved from Poland to Sweden, where she was born. They then immigrated to Canada in 1951, where she grew up and eventually had a son, Michael.”
Rubenfeld and Berchard were in Poland for about two weeks. “My mother has since been back three or four more times, and I now have a home in Poland with my wife,” said Rubenfeld – the couple lives in both Krakow and Toronto. “We’ve toured We Keep Coming Back to Poland three times,” he added.
The project has worked to bring mother and son closer.
“It’s been really nice for us to have a piece that we do together,” said Rubenfeld. “It gives us an excuse to spend time together to do something we know we’re going to enjoy. It’s also given us commonality, which has been really essential for our relationship.
“My mother has always been very supportive, though we don’t always have a lot in common. This project has changed that. We also now have Poland in common, and our mutual interest. My mother really loves it in Poland. She’s also become quite interested in uncovering more about our history and has started researching and archiving our family tree. It’s brought her a lot of happiness and has been a really healing thing – which, in general, has been good for our relationship as well.”
We Keep Coming Back “speaks so openly and honestly about what it means to love a parent, or to be loved by a child, and how so many of the resources for a good and enduring love were torn apart by the Holocaust and all of the horrors, throughout the generations that linger,” said Garton Stanley, who is also associate artistic director of English theatre and interim facilitator for indigenous theatre at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.
“Honestly, as someone on the ground since the get-go, I was most curious about Michael’s developing love for Poland and how, over the course of the play’s creation, he not only fell in love with a Jewish woman from Poland but that he now lives there,” she said. “Michael and I are very interested in the line between fiction and reality and the space for realizing possible worlds through dramatic form. Michael now speaks some Polish. He’s making deep-rooted reconnections and helping contribute to a vibrant Jewish life in Poland.”
Garton Stanley and Rubenfeld met just over 10 years ago, after she saw him in a show. “He was performing in it with my partner at the time,” she said. “He was amazing. We became fast friends shortly thereafter.”
At Selfconscious Theatre – which they started together – the two have also co-created The Book of Judith; Mother, Mother, Mother; and The Failure Show.
For We Keep Coming Back, Garton Stanley is not only co-creator but the director. “My co-creation,” she explained, “was part facilitator, part conceiver, part devisor, part writer, part mediator, part friend and always enthusiast.”
How Reszke became involved in the production is a little more circuitous and fortuitous.
“Once we decided to take the trip to Poland, we connected with a producer named Evelyn Tauben, who was doing research around contemporary Jewish Poland,” explained Rubenfeld. “Through Evelyn initially, we started learning about the renaissance of Jewish culture in Poland, which, at the time, I knew nothing about. Once learning about it, we determined that it was important to us that we engage with it on our trip, and that’s when Katka came into the picture.
“We knew we needed a translator to join us, and we also knew we wanted to document the process. We joked that it would be incredible if we could find someone who could both translate, film and be a Polish Jew who might want to collaborate with us artistically. On a lark, we Googled ‘Polish, Jewish, filmmaker,’ and that’s how we discovered Katka. We sent her an email, and one thing led to another.”
“Mary Berchard and Katka Reszke,” added Garton Stanley, “are fascinating performers and neither of them has any training in this area. Their stories and their curiosity combine with Michael’s to create a new family. And this feels like one of the piece’s hidden successes.”
As for what has most surprised her about the project, she said, “That we are still doing it and learning from it. And learning from the audiences whose histories intersect with Michael’s, Mary’s and Katka’s own generational challenges and traumas. And that the piece resonates as deeply as it does. It has a beautiful heart and this is always surprising, in the best way.”
“I believe that, in our desire to never forget what happened during the Holocaust, we have also forgotten that Poland was one of the most important contemporary homelands for the Ashkenazi Jewish people for over 500 years,” said Rubenfeld. “So much of our contemporary culture was bred in this land, and we forget that the Jewish people were happy living in Poland before the war. We are raised to think of Poland as only the place of tragedy. While I understand why, I think that it’s essential to remember and celebrate a time when there was such vibrant Jewish culture. Most was destroyed because of the war, and it’s impossible to not feel sad. But, as we move into the future and the pain continues to recede, it is just as important to remember the incredible prewar Polish Jewish world of Poland. It was very profound.”
For tickets to We Keep Coming Back at the Rothstein Theatre, and for the full Chutzpah! schedule, visit chutzpahfestival.com.
Deb Filler performs at the Chutzpah! Festival on March 4. (photo from Chutzpah!)
“I’ve performed all over the world, baked challah bread onstage, done shows everywhere, and this is the first time in all these years I am performing in Vancouver live. Delighted to be coming back to do a show! I hope there’ll be more,” Deb Filler told the Independent.
Filler, who will perform at the Chutzpah! Festival on March 4, lived in Vancouver for six months, starting in late 1979.
“I was tempted to stay but never did,” said the comedian, actor, musician, teacher and writer originally from New Zealand. “My career in North America started there. I had an agent and things were going well but New York called, Stella Adler and Uta Hagen, the great acting teachers I studied with. So, I drove across country and the rest as they say….”
While Filler left Vancouver for New York, she has lived in Toronto since 1995.
“I came for a film that was being made of my work, Punch Me in the Stomach, and I stayed and I fell in love,” she said. “Toronto is a terrific city for fun, culture. And it’s close to Europe and New York. I was in New York before that for 15 years, so I guess I’m a bit of a rightie not a leftie – coastie. Not politically, that’s for sure!”
Filler will be bringing her show I Did It My Way in Yiddish (in English) to the Rothstein Theatre for one performance only – March 4, 1 p.m. Described as a journey around the world, “jam-packed” with music (Filler on her guitar) “and a raft of loveable characters she creates,” the initial work was commissioned by the Jewish Community Centre London, called the JW3, as it is located on Finchley Road, NW3. The centre’s tagline is “The postal code for Jewish life.”
“It’s a fantastic modern facility in North London with cafés, art studios, a theatre, meeting places, gallery, classrooms, a school, a film space, a real cultural hub,” said Filler, who had worked with them before the commission. “I’d gotten a great response several times in the past and they were keen for me to come back for their U.K. Jewish Comedy Festival so asked me to perform a new show. I knew – because the stories I tell about meeting and befriending Leonard Bernstein, Leonard Cohen and another Jewish musician called Lenny – that London audiences would respond like audiences have all over the world. So, when they asked, I was delighted to agree, and now the show has been in New York, L.A., Sydney, Toronto, and is coming to Vancouver and D.C.”
Since the commission, the show has changed a bit.
“We made a short dramatic film of one of the stories, which is sometimes screened during the show as a multimedia segment, which Chutzpah! requested. Also, the name has changed to describe the show better than The Three Lennys.”
A March 2017 article on broadwayworld.com describes a bit of the show: “As Deb drives for a car service in New York City, she takes us on a truly incredible ride with Leonard Cohen, reducing the venerable Canadian folksinger to tears of laughter. Her story of meeting Leonard Bernstein as a teen, bringing him fresh challah bread from her father, a survivor of the Holocaust who heard Bernstein play Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue in a displaced persons camp after the war, is extraordinary. What happens next is truly unbelievable.”
One of the things that will happen next for Filler is a trip to Europe. “I’m being invited to Landsberg in Germany as guest of the reunion there of my father’s displaced persons camp, where Leonard Bernstein played and my dad saw him in 1948…. I’m also working on My German Roots Are Showing, which I read in London with actor Miriam Margolyes as my mother. She is fantastic!”
In a conversation a few years ago on Auckland’s Newsbeat (newsbeat.kiwi) with journalist Keren Cook, Filler spoke about Jewish humour and how her family provided a rich environment and offered many resources for her creative expression.
When the Independent asked her about how she takes into account her relatives’ feelings, Filler said, “There are red lines, nothing too personal, but my family are wonderful and amongst my biggest fans, so it’s been a pleasure to perform for them. One relative loved my show Punch Me in the Stomach, but somebody put a worm in her ear and she got defensive so I’ve taken her out of future shows to safeguard any feelings she may have about being exposed. It’s all done with love and admiration, and a bit of comedy of course. So, sometimes one must exaggerate for the laugh. But it’s all good.”
Filler taught at Brown University for 14 years in Providence, R.I., and she teaches at Humber College in Toronto and at Toi Whakaari (New Zealand Drama School), in addition to having private students. “I’ve recently started directing,” she said, “and just had a wonderful show open in Auckland for Pride Festival, called Random Shagger. It’s doing really well.”
She advises aspiring comics about to pick up the mic for the first time, “Be strong! Be brave! Have confidence in your persona. And do it for yourself, not for drunken college students who tend to populate comedy club audiences.”
For tickets to I Did It My Way in Yiddish (in English) and the full Chutzpah! Festival lineup, visit chutzpahfestival.com.
