ENTERTAINMENT N.Y. Producer Joe Papp Revitalizes Yiddish Theater ELLI WOHLGELERNTER Special to The Jewish News y THE BRASS POINTE oz 0 61 0 SPECIALS 0 ti AR BAR-B-Q SLAB FOR 2..`f I 1" HAPPY PASSOVER OR BAR-B-Q CHICKEN FOR 2 $ 7 95 DINE-IN OR CARRY-OUT We Serve Beer, Wine and Cocktails Expires 4-21-89 JN OPEN 7 DAYS A WEEK FROM 11 a.m. 24234 Orchard Lake Rd. at 10 Mile 476-1377 HAPPY PASSOVER TO OUR CUSTOMERS & FRIENDS UPTOWN NMI 111111 1111— ,A1 118111 ;1111=L7 r DELI 28948 ORCHARD LAKE ROAD, Bet 12 & 13 (Next to Toss-A-Party) CARRY-OUT 626-3715 • CATERING 855-4733 • FAX 626-0314 FREE LOW FAT FROZEN Q YOGURT 0 0 I PURCHASE ONE AT REGULAR PRICE AND 21 GET SECOND SAME SIZE AT NO CHARGE Expires 4-23-89 1 OPEN 7 DAYS, MON.-SAT. 8 to 7, SUNDAY NOON to 5 HAPPY PASSOVER FREE HAPPY PASSOVER CHICAGO DOG With Purchase Of ANY Sandwich! Open 7 Days, Mon.-Sat. 10-9, Sun. 12-8 Your Hosts: Larry and Mimi Fredman and Mike and Susie Glanzrock HOT DAWG! & MORE 32734 GRAND RIVER, 1/4 MILE EAST OF FARMINGTON RD. IN THE NEW ART DECO VILLAGE COMMONS MALL • PHONE 471-DAWG 92 FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1989 osef Papirofsky did not become the most influential theatrical producer in America by following trends. He sets them. For years, Yiddish theater has been relegated to small neighborhood stages showing old chestnuts — classics typically from Sholom Aleichem and I.L. Peretz, with one piano tinkling in the background. Papirofsky saw those shows, loved them, but wanted to make them speak to a new generation of theatergoers, one weaned on some of his most innovative shows, like his long-running mega hit, A Chorus Line. Papirofsky is better known by his stage name: Joe Papp. He's the producer who brings inexpensive theater to the public at his Public Theater, and who presents free Shakespeare every summer in Central Park as the direc- tor of the Neiv York Shakespeare Festival. To Papp the signs were un- mistakable: Yiddish is hap- pening, from bulging classes at universities to the success of Jackie Mason, the Yiddish- inflected comic who just finished a triumphant two- year run on Broadway. "There seems to be so much interest in it," Papp said. "Those who have a marginal knowledge of Yiddish, who number in the thousands, and then those who speak it — older people, Holocaust sur- vivors and their children. "There's a curiosity about the language itself, even from those who have no experience with it. It's a feeling of Yid- dishkeit, of roots." A year ago, Miriam Hoff- man, a child survivor of the Holocaust and a writer for the Jewish Forward, and Rena Berkowitz Borow, a child of survivors and a Yiddish translator who has worked with I.B. Singer, approached Papp with the idea for a Yid- dish acting troupe. "We need a home," Hoffman told Papp. "And you can do it." Papp, moved by the request, put his imprimatur on the project, hoping that his spon- sorship would enable it to get off the ground. Thus, the Joseph Papp Yiddish Theater was born. "It is the greatest feeling in the world," Papp said, "put- ting my name and Yiddish together. It's the mamaloshen." It's what he knew best. "I was raised Orthodox, and spoke only Yiddish till I went to school." Even today, he said, both his sisters are Orthodox. Papp is proud of his heritage. "I had my name in the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens' celebrity walk, for people born in Brooklyn. They had my name as Papp. I had it replaced with Papirofsky.' Not surprising, then, that the first production of Papp's Yiddish Theater is a hilarious contemporary musical based on the book of Genesis. Songs of Paradise is co- authored by Hoffman and- Borow, and based on the world of poet Itsik Manger. It has Adam sunning himself in a beach chair, Cain as a 6-year-old brat running around with a toy machine gun, Esau as a Yiddish Marlon Brando sporting a motorcycle helmet and bargaining over lentil soup, and a boxing match between Rachel and Leah as they fight over who gets Ya'acov. All this is told to the tune of rock 'n roll, doo-wop, jazz, blues and gospel, as well as a hand-clapping Yiddish min- strel number. The buoyant and dazzling songs were writ- ten by Rosalie Gerut, who also stars in the five-member cast. Originally scheduled to run for three weeks, Songs was ex- tended to two months. For Papp, it was a commercial, ar- tistic and personal success. Once there were 20 Yiddish theaters on Second Avenue. Now there is one, the Folks- biene Playhouse — which has moved uptown. Papp has no illusions that Songs will trigger a rebirth of the old Yiddish theater. "The mashiach isn't coming with this production," he said. Nevertheless, he doesn't feel that Yiddish theater is just "limited to small reviews, as a side show. It can make it in the mainstream, too." What's most important, he said, is that "the language not disappear. That's para- mount in my mind. But it's something that can only be addressed by young people. It's hard to preseve the language when people who speak it are dying out." In the future, he would like to "commission first-class American Jewish play- wrights like David Mamet, to write a play for this group. "I'd work with Duvid'l. He can write an original play and we'd have it translated in- to Yiddish." What next for the Joe Papp Yiddish Theater? A Miten Zumerdiker Nachts Cholem, eppes? Jewish Telegraphic Agency Adler Descendant Recalls Family Theater Triumphs MICHAEL ELKIN Special to The Jewish News L una Adler Rosenfeld has memory in her voice — it is honey and warmth, reflective of times long ago when grandpop Jacob, grand patriarch of Yid- dish theater, would offer a peek into the mystery and magic that was theater. To be an Adler is to be part of the act even as the au- dience is filing in, filling the seats. lb have grown up as an Adler was a childhood of waiting in the wings for greatness. "Yes, there were times I remember growing up think- ing we were special — we were actors," recalls Rosenfeld proudly. "We grew up think- ing we were celebrities. There wasn't a tailor shop in New York that we couldn't go into without being recognized as one of the Adlers' eight grand- children." But despite the fact that zayde could bounce her on his knee while recounting true stories of such legends as Thomashefsky and his own derring-do, Rosenfeld says "it was a pretty normal life. It wasn't all that glamorous." The Adler name — patriarch Jacob, his children Luther, Stella, Frances and Celia, among others, and, of course, granddaughter Lulla Adler Rosenfeld — seems to have a touch of glamor added to it. "Glamor?" Rosenfeld is amused. "Life wasn't all that glamorous. Our parents acted, and that was that. We didn't stand out from others." Well, maybe sometimes