ENTERTAINMENT
G
e
A NOSTALGIC LOOK AT THE BEST OF
YIDDISH THEATER COMES TO THE
BIRMINGHAM IN THOSE WERE THE DAYS.
9Iden
'
E-
T
he development of the
musical revue Those
Were the Days is one of
those great theater stories
that begins with a bright idea
from a producer and ends
with a show that becomes an
unlikely popular hit.
In ,between, none of the
theater artists involved
suspected that the unconven-
tional material they were
shaping for a limited run at
a regional theater would go
on to enthusiastic notices on
Broadway and packed houses
on the road.
Perhaps the most unlikely
aspect of the Broadway run of
Those Were the Days was that
its subject matter and style —
stories and songs in Yiddish
and English — earned so
much attention and affection
from the non-Yiddish theater
community.
During its respectable five-
month run at the Edison
Theatre in the 1990-91 Broad-
way season, the show earned
two Tony Award nominations,
a remarkable feat for an out-
of-the-mainstream revue that
lacks the essentials of a
modern musical hit: stars,
spectacular sets, a massive or-
chestra and an unlimited
marketing budget.
"After decades of Yiddish
being written off as a
language of another era,
another generation — and not
at all relevant to the Jewish
world — here we are in the
1990s with a show that is
about Yiddish, with Yiddish
and for the perpetuation of
Yiddish that reaches the pin-
nacle of Broadway," says co-
creator Moishe Rosenfeld.
Mr. Rosenfeld, 42, continues
to be pleased with the show's
success as it continues on a
national tour with stops in
New England, Washington
Kenneth Jones is a Detroit-
area theater writer and critic.
D.C., along Florida's east
coast and, beginning April 28
until May 10, in Birmingham
at the Birmingham Theatre.
Performed by an ensemble
of five, including director-
actress Eleanor Reissa, who
earned a Tony nomination for
her direction, Those Were the
Days is punctuated with
stories by Sholem Aleichem,
Yiddish folk songs from
Eastern Europe, a Yiddish
radio hour sequence, and the
classic Yiddish crossover
tune, "Bei Mir Bistu Schoen."
Mr. Rosenfeld says about 35
percent of the show is per-
formed in "accessible" Yid-
dish, with the actors tele-
graphing the meaning even if
you don't speak the language.
The road to Broadway and
beyond began in Philadel-
phia, in 1989, when impre-
sario Moe Septee had the no-
tion to mount a show compris-
ed of the great scenes and
songs from the golden era of
Yiddish American theater, a
time roughly between 1900-
1940.
KENNETH JONES
Special to The Jewish News
Mr. Septee, whose Broad-
way producing credits include
The Basic Training of Paulo
Hummel and Yentl, already
had a title in mind: Those
Were the Days, the kind of ex-
clamatory phrase that per-
fectly fits the revue's doffing
of the hat to the good old days.
Mr. Septee engaged Mr. Ro-
senfeld and Zalmen Mlotek to
develop the show, giving them
about six weeks before it
would play Philadelphia's
Walnut Street Theatre. The
producer asked Ms. Reissa to
perform in it, and she said yes
on the condition that she also
be allowed to direct and
choreograph.
Her staging impressed film
director Sidney Lumet so
much that he asked her to
choreograph segments of his
next film, Close to Eden,
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
63
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